§ Order for the Consideration of the Lords' Amendments read.
§ * THE UNDER-SECRETARY OF STATE FOR THE HOME DEPARTMENT (Mr. HERBERT SAMUEL,) Yorkshire, Clevelandsaid that six out of seven of the Amendments were drafting Amendments which were inserted in another place on the Motion of the Government. The House must remember that a measure so long and complex must necessarily give rise to very numerous points of drafting. Although to a great extent it was a consolidation measure, it should be remembered that there was hardly a single clause which was purely a consolidation clause. Of the numerous Amendments, which filled fifteen pages 1597 of the Paper, only about twenty were more than mere drafting Amendments, and as they came to them he would rise and say a few words of explanation. Only five raised points of real substance, apart from the Amendments on the Scottish and Irish clauses. He should move to disagree with the Lords' Amendment on page 19, line 21, which dealt with the class of persons to inspect voluntary homes, and he should propose an alteration to the Lords' Amendment on page 30, lines 10 and 11.
§ Motion made, and Question proposed, "That the Lords' Amendments be now considered."
§ MR. A. J. BALFOUR (City of London)said that as he understood the right hon. Gentleman these many pages of Amendments were due to the fact that they were not able to deal in this House with all the points raised nor to make the Bill water-tight before it went to the other House.
§ Question put, and agreed to.
§ Lords' Amendments considered accordingly.
§
Lords' Amendments—
In page 1, line 9, after the word 'parents,' to insert the words 'or having no parents.'
In page 2, line 31, after the word 'thereunder,' to insert the words 'Subject as aforesaid, that Part of this Act shall apply to an infant whose nursing and maintenance has been undertaken for reward before the passing of this Act in like manner as it applies to an infant whose nursing and maintenance has been so undertaken after the commencement of this Act, and as if any notice given under the Infant Life Protection Act, 1897, had been a notice given under this Part of this Act.'
In page 3, line 17, after the word 'proper, to insert the words 'nursing and.'
In page 3, line 18, after the word 'their,' to insert the words 'nursing and.'
In page 4, line 12, after the word 'obstructs,' to insert the words 'or causes or procures to be obstructed.'
In page 4, line 19, after the word 'Act,' to insert the words 'or the Infant Life Protection Act, 1897.'
§ Agreed to.
§
Lords' Amendment—
In page 4, line 22, after the word 'insanitary,' to insert the words 'or has been removed
1598
under the Infant Life Protection Act, 1897, by reason of the premises being so unfit as to endanger its health.'"—
§ MR. H. J. TENNANT (Berwickshire)said he would move to disagree with the Lords in this Amendment in order to ask whether it was in accordance with the Under-Secretary's desires.
§ * MR. HERBERT SAMUELsaid it was purely a drafting Amendment. The reasons for which a child could be removed from the care of a baby-farmer under this Act were slightly different, rather in language than in substance, from those under the Act of 1897, and the Amendment was merely to show that the Bill applied to both categories of children.
§ Agreed to.
§
Lords' Amendments—
In page 4, line 23, after the word 'person,' to insert the words 'who has been.'
In page 4, line 24, after the word 'or,' to insert the words 'under the Prevention of Cruelty to Children Act, 1904.'"—
§ Agreed to.
§
Lords' Amendment—
In page 4, lines 25 to 27, to leave out the Paragraph (d).
§ * MR. HERBERT SAMUELsaid the reason for the omission of this paragraph was that it had been thought that a local authority ought not to have power of its own motion to declare certain persons unfit to have the care of infants. It was really almost a judicial procedure, for which local authorities were not very well qualified. The clause, as a matter of fact, provided that local authorities could declare that any person should be unfit to have the care of an infant if an infant had already been removed from that person on the ground that the premises were unfit or that the child was badly treated, or if the person had been convicted of an offence against the Act for the prevention of cruelty to children. Paragraph (d) was, therefore, unnecessary, and was thought to give a somewhat excessive power.
§ Agreed to.
1599
§
Lords' Amendments—
In page 4, line 28, after the word 'keeping,' to insert the words 'or causing to be kept.'
In page 5, line 3, to leave out the words 'its care and maintenance,' and to insert the words 'care of it.'
In page 5, line 12, after the word 'obstructing,' to insert the words 'or causing or procuring to be obstructed.'
In page 6, line 4, to leave out the words 'such a person,' and to insert the words 'or the benefit of such a person as aforesaid or to any person on his behalf.'
In page 6, line 5, to leave out the words 'or other,' and to insert the words 'society or.'
In page 6, line 9, after the word 'false,' to insert the words 'or misleading.'
In page 6, lines 20 and 21, to leave out the words 'to a fine not exceeding twenty-five pounds or.'
§ Agreed to.
§
Lords' Amendment—
In page 6, line 22, after the word 'months,' to insert the words 'or to a fine not exceeding twenty-five pounds.'
§ MR. H. J. TENNANTsaid that as far as he could make it out the Amendment was doing away with the fine. He did not know whether the House thought this was an offence where persons ought to be without the option of a fine.
§ * MR. HERBERT SAMUELsaid the Bill as it stood read that a person should, on summary conviction, be liable to a fine not exceeding £25, or to imprisonment for a term not exceeding six months. That was unusual wording, for as a rule the imprisonment went first and the fine afterwards, and the effect of the Amendment was that a person should be liable to imprisonment or a fine; it did not omit the fine.
§ Agreed to.
§
Lords' Amendments—
In page 8, line 10, after the word 'fails,' to insert the words 'to take steps.'
In page 8, lines 14 and 15, to leave out the words 'to the child or young person,' and to insert the words 'or the likelihood of such suffering or injury to health.'
In page 10, line 15, to leave out the word 'habitually.'
§ Agreed to.
§
Lords' Amendment—
In page 10, line 29, to leave out the word 'encourages.'
§ * MR. HERBERT SAMUELsaid this was slightly more than a drafting Amendment. It was proposed to re-insert the word "encourages" later on. The word left out was "favours." The alteration was made in the Motion of the Lord Chief Justice on the ground that "favours" was unduly vague in view of the infliction of such severe penalties.
§ Agreed to.
§
Lords' Amendments—
In page 10, line 30, to leave out the word 'favours,' and to insert the word 'encourages.'
In page 10, line 34, to leave out the word 'favoured,' and to insert the words 'caused or encouraged.'
In page 10, line 35, after the word 'girl,' to insert the words 'who has been seduced or become a prostitute,' and to leave out the words 'conduced thereto by,' and to leave out the word 'allowing,' and to insert the word 'allowed.'
In page 10, line 37, to leave out the word notoriously,' and to insert the word 'known.'
In page 12, line 19, to leave out the words 'Part of this.'
In page 13, line 9, after the word 'and,' to insert the words 'that Court or any Court of like jurisdiction.'
In page 14, line 34, to leave out the word 'by,' and to insert the word 'under.'
In page 15, line 37, after the word 'Court, to insert the words 'which made the order or any Court of like jurisdiction.'
§ Agreed to.
§
Lords' Amendment—
In page 17, line 21, to leave out from the word 'purpose,' to the end of the subsection, and to insert the words 'Provided that such persons shall be either inspectors or assistant inspectors of reformatory and industrial schools, members of the medical profession, or persons of experience in the management and training of children.
§ Read a second time.
§ * MR. HERBERT SAMUELsaid this was the only Amendment with which he should ask the House to disagree. He thought their Lordships had misunderstood what was really the purpose of Clause 25 of the Bill, and had inserted provisions which went far beyond the intentions of that clause. There were, at present, a number of charitable institutions existing for the care and maintenance of children. Cases occurred, however, in which these homes, diverted from their original purpose or even conforming 1601 to an original purpose which was evil, became places run for profit, where children were neglected, where cruelties sometimes occurred, and where profits were made from the subscriptions of the charitable, for the benefit of the persons maintaining those institutions. Under the law as it at present stood, there was no power for anyone to enter a home unless he got a magistrate's warrant. Any evil might go on, but although, for instance, the Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children might hear rumours that all was not well in an institution, unless they could convince a magistrate that there was cause for the issue of a warrant they could not get any power of entry. To meet that admitted evil, they inserted words in the Bill to the effect that there should be a right of entry, that persons should be authorised to visit and inspect these homes which were supported wholly or partly by voluntary contributions, homes, that is, which were not liable to be inspected by any Government Department, such as industrial schools or institutions receiving grants from the Local Government Board. It was not intended to establish any staff of Government Inspectors for this purpose; the case did not warrant it. The evils in view were, happily, exceedingly few. The homes, on the other hand, which received children were very numerous; there were many hundreds belonging to all denominations all over the country, and if they were to impose on a Government Department the duty of inspecting all these homes they would be imposing on the State a financial charge which the circumstances of the case did not warrant. Besides there was no precedent for requiring inspection of this character where there was no Government grant, and if there was no grant an inspecter could not require the managers of a home to improve the accommodation, because he could not make the refusal to conform to his requirements the ground for withholding a Government grant. No one proposed that there should be a Government grant to benevolent institutions of this kind, and therefore, after consultation with the persons interested, they proposed in the Bill that the persons who should have the power of entry should be the officers of a society for the reception or protection 1602 of poor children or for the prevention of cruelty to children, subject to such conditions as the Secretary of State might prescribe, and the officers to be specially authorised by the Secretary of State. In other words, they proposed that the Inspection of Homes Association, which already existed, and under which a number of homes were now voluntarily inspected, should be given powers by the Secretary of State for their officers to visit these charitable institutions where they thought it necessary, and further that selected officers of the Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children should also be empowered by the Secretary of State to perform these functions. There was a provision in the clause to the effect that where any such institution was carried on in accordance with the principles of a particular religious denomination, the Secretary of State should, if so desired, appoint a person of that denomination to visit such institution, so that the susceptibilities of the Roman Catholics were especially considered, after consultation with them. The House of Lords proposed to omit the words providing that officers of a society might be appointed by the Secretary of State to perform this function, and in place thereof to insert a provision that such persons should be inspectors or assistant inspectors of reformatory or industrial schools, members of the medical profession, or persons of experience in the management and training of children. With regard to the inspectors and assistant inspectors of reformatory or industrial schools, they already had very nearly as much as they could do, and they would probably be called upon to inspect the places of detention provided under the Bill, so that it would be impossible for them to visit numbers of institutions in the country, still less to perform the police function of keeping a watch on institutions where it was suspected that something wrong might be going on. With regard to members of the medical profession, it was extremely unlikely that they would be able to obtain doctors to perform this function, and with reference to the "persons of experience in the management and training of children," those words, while very wide, were not nearly so good as the original words in the Bill. Certainly all the inspectors of 1603 the societies they had in mind were persons with this experience. They did not want to perform the purpose they had in view by a side-wind, and they thought it better to express in the clause what really was its purpose. He had no reason to think the House of Lords would object to the omission of this subsection, he did not imagine that it would give rise to any grave constitutional conflict between the two Houses.
§ Motion made and Question proposed, "That this House doth disagree with the Lords in the said Amendment."—(Mr. Herbert Samuel.)
§ * SIR HENRY CRAIK (Glasgow and Aberdeen Universities)said that the point raised by this Amendment was, if he remembered rightly, one which was considerably discussed in Committee, and he did not think that everyone present in Committee would quite agree with the right hon. Gentleman that this was an Amendment due to a misunderstanding by the Lords. The right hon. Gentleman had brought forward as an argument against the Amendment that it would be impossible to carry out this inspection, and, secondly, that it would be improper to ask the schools to submit to the visits of these inspectors because no grant would follow their inspection. After all, the main thing was that those institutions, of whatever sort they were, were to be subject to inspection, and surely they were beginning an entirely new move in placing this system of inspection in the hands of persons who were the servants of voluntary and private societies. It was this to which the right hon. Gentleman asked them to give their consent by refusing to agree with the Amendment of the House of Lords. It was surely a new thing that those charitable institutions were to be inspected not by officers of the State, who were under discipline and had directions as to how they were to act, and who were answerable as to their conduct to the Secretary of State and ultimately to Parliament, but by self-elected busybodies. [Cries of "No, no."] He was not using the word without reason. No doubt they were selected by the right hon. Gentleman for the particular duty for which they 1604 were appointed, but they were men and women who were elected by private benevolent societies. He did not wish to decry these societies; but they had their denominational prejudices, and a general bias in visiting these voluntary institutions which did not altogether agree with their views. They ought not to begin a new epoch of inspection by handing over these institutions to busybodies appointed by private voluntary societies. The reason which the right hon. Gentleman gave for this departure was that they could not get persons of proper qualifications to take up the duty of inspection; that they could not get qualified medical men or persons experienced in the training of children to undertake the duty. Surely the argument failed. If inspectors were to visit those institutions with the authority of the Secretary of State, let them be paid by the public Department to which they would be responsible. He defied the Government to make themselves responsible for any vexatious investigations which these voluntary inspectors might make, prompted, it might be, by sectarian or denominational influences. Therefore he wished the House to agree to the Lords' Amendment.
§ SIR F. BANBURY (City of London)said that the right hon. Gentleman the Under-Secretary for the Home Department stated as a reason why he disagreed with the Lords' Amendment that he was sure that the House did not wish to set up a new Government Department, with all its expenses, in order to make these inspections. He quite agreed with the right hon. Gentleman's contention if that were to be the result the acceptance of the Lords' Amendment. But he would point out that the whole clause as amended by the Lords was optional, that the Secretary of State might appoint inspectors if he thought fit. The clause, as now amended, ran—
The Secretary of State may cause any institution for the reception of poor children or young persons, supported wholly or partly by voluntary contributions, and not liable to be inspected by or under the authority of any Government Department, to be visited and inspected from time to time by persons appointed by him for the purpose.1605 That was to say, that the Home Secretary might appoint anyone he liked. Then the clause went on to say that such persons appointed as inspectors, should be either inspectors or assistant inspectors of reformatories and industrial schools, members of the medical profession, or persons of experience in the management and training of children. The whole thing was permissive. The Secretary of State might appoint anybody he liked. The Lords' Amendment would only limit the choice of the Secretary of State to certain classes of people. The first two classes, he thought, would be rather difficult to obtain, and in that he agreed with the right hon. Gentleman. As to the third class, "persons of experience in the management and training of children," he had no doubt that there were many excellent people interested in particular societies who were often most active in that regard, and who might come under the description of "busybodies," and he did not think it would be advisable to appoint those people for the purposes of inspection. But he thought that it might be left to the discretion of the Secretary of State to appoint anyone he liked rather than limit him to the appointment of an individual belonging to a particular society. For these reasons he would have much pleasure in agreeing to the Lords' Amendment.
THE ATTORNEY-GENERAL FOR IRELAND (Mr. CHEERY Liverpool,) Exchangesaid that this clause enabled the Secretary of State to appoint, if so desired by the managers of any institution which was carried on in accordance with the principles of any particular religious denomination, where practicable, a person of that denomination to visit and inspect the institution. He had himself been for fifteen years President of the Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children in Dublin, and he could testify from experience the enormous amount of good that had been done to the poor of Dublin by the inspectors of that society. They were all excellent men, well qualified to do the work; although they were not medical men. They were very often ex-soldiers or ex-constabulary men, at any rate men in a responsible position of society, and he thought that the 1606 clause as originally passed would greatly increase their powers of doing good work. It would be economical to appoint them, and also greatly increase the usefulness of such societies to which he had referred. He thought that the Secretary of State might be trusted to see that proper persons were appointed, and therefore he believed that it was best to retain the clause as it originally stood in the Bill, and that the Lords' Amendment should be disagreed with.
§ LORD EDMUND TALBOT (Sussex, Chichester)said he supported the right hon. Gentleman the Attorney-General for Ireland. He confessed that he thought that the words in the original Bill were very much better than the Amendment inserted by the Lords. It appeared to him that the control of the Secretary of State was perfectly safeguarded.
§ MR. RAWLINSON (Cambridge University)said that he supported the Lords' Amendment because it dealt with the description of the men who were to be appointed inspectors, that was, that they were to be either inspectors or assistant inspectors of reformatory and industrial schools, members of the medical profession, or persons of experience in the management and training of children. He insisted that under that power the Secretary of State, if he chose, could appoint a member of any particular society, such as was referred to by the Attorney-General for Ireland.
§ * MR. HERBERT SAMUELWhere the special directions of Parliament are given.
§ MR. RAWLINSONwent on to contend that if a man was appointed, on his merits, an inspector by an official of the State, then the latter would be responsible for him, and it would be better than if he were appointed as an officer of a particular society. Surely it was better to appoint a man on his merits than as an officer of a particular society.
§ * MR. NAPIER (Kent, Faversham)said that possibly the Lords' Amendment was not inconsistent with the Bill as it was 1607 originally drawn, and he thought there would be no contravention of the original intention of the Government if, instead of accepting that part of the Lords' Amendment which struck out of the clause these words, they tacked on at the end a slight addition. The intention of the Government was that the persons nominated by the society, and adopted by the Government, should be persons of experience. One could see that the words at the end of the Lords' Amendment, "or persons of experience in the management and training of children," might possibly rule out the ordinary inspector of one of these societies. He would not necessarily be a person of experience in the management and training of children, and one supposed, therefore, that strictly he would not be deemed to come within the Lords' Amendment. But the Government desired, and rightly desired, that the inspectors of these societies should be nominated by them, and entitled in certain instances to inspect. That intention could be perfectly carried out if the Government were to move the acceptance of the Lords' Amendment with a slight alteration of the phraseology, by substituting, instead of the words "or persons of experience in the management and training of children," the words "persons of experience with respect to the management and training of children." That would enable them to appoint persons who had not themselves taken part in the management and training of children, but who had from time to time inspected homes of this character, and who would, therefore, be excellent judges. In that way he thought the Lords' Amendment might naturally give effect to what the Government desired.
§ MR. STUART WORTLEY (Sheffield, Hallam), was understood to say that the right hon. Gentleman had quite rightly pointed out that it was a well-known Departmental rule that if Parliament had indicated a certain desire or given instructions they should be obeyed administratively by any Department. His difficulty was that a Department, if they left these words almost directly referring to the officers of a particular society, would feel it was practically incumbent upon it to limit its action to those officers. He agreed that 1608 those institutions which claimed to supersede the parental office to some extent, and which invited public subscriptions for that purpose, did not stand altogether in the position of private institutions, and they were all agreed that abuses, where they existed, must be put a stop to; but it was rather an important matter to remember that they should not allow premises to be entered, if necessary, by force, and persons put on their risk if they refused entry, except by public officers. The reason why he rather preferred the formula adopted by the House of Lords to that in the Bill as it left the Commons was that they had indicated that he was to be a public officer. The hon. Gentleman had admitted that these cases were very few and far between, so that the financial consideration could not have much weight, and he was sure that the able officer would be found who was ready and willing to undertake this duty. It was, to his mind, however, not quite a satisfactory thing to think that they might appoint to examine what was going on under one society the officers of another. He could not think however, that there would be any sectarian prejudices, because he could not imagine any Secretary of State being so ill-advised as to make an appointment; which would result in such a state of things. On the whole, however, he preferred the formula of the House of Lords.
§ * SIR FRANCIS CHANNING (Northamptonshire, E.)said it was perfectly true, as the right hon. Gentleman had pointed out, that the Amendment of the House of Lords gave an alternative of other inspectors or persons of experience, but he would appeal to those who had considered the effect of drafting in provisions of this kind to take into account that if they introduced a specific description in a clause they undoubtedly limited its effect. The risk of any sectarian interference was entirely excluded by subsection (3) of the clause, and he would point out to those hon. Members who took exception to the clause, as proposed by the Government, that these homes were of extremely varying types, both as to the religious denominations that started them and the objects to which they 1609 were directed, and they varied in a great many other circumstances. He thought the attempt to limit or prescribe was a mistake, and it was better to leave a perfectly free hand to the Secretary of State to select the class of persons who could deal most advantageously and most properly with this most serious and difficult question of inspection. He thought it would be a very great mistake if that free hand were not given to the Secretary of State.
§ MR. BOWLES (Lambeth, Norwood)agreed that the Secretary of State should have a free hand, and said it was for that reason he earnestly supported the Amendment which had come down from the other House. It appeared to him that the Amendment, so far from limiting the discretion of the Secretary of State, enormously, and, as he thought, wisely and properly increased it. The Attorney-General for Ireland had told them that certain societies in which he was interested, the Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children, and the Society for the Protection of Homes, did good work and were excellent societies. That might well be, and if the Secretary of State desired to appoint one of the officers of these societies there was nothing to prevent him from doing so, so long as the person was one who had experience in the management; and training of children. He did not know whether that was considered to be an improper limitation, but to him it appeared a very proper one. But what was the real objection to the Amendment? He had often heard it said outside the House that many clauses of the Bill had really, and in fact, been dictated a good deal less by regard for the children and the interests concerned than by regard for the interests of certain societies such as those which had been mentioned. He, for his part, did not feel, and he thought the House of Commons ought not to feel, any such obligation to societies dependent upon public subscriptions in competition with others. This clause was drawn and, it could not be denied, if it was carried out, would and must have that effect. For his part, he agreed that it seemed to limit the appointments to this very difficult office to officers of these two societies. 1610 That was really what it came to. It limited the appointment to people who might be the very worst possible people.
§ * MR. HERBERT SAMUELIt is not limited to them.
§ MR. BOWLESsaid the right hon. Gentleman would not deny that it gave a direction to the Home Office which the Home Office would find it difficult not to carry out.
§ * MR. HERBERT SAMUELIf this system proves unsatisfactory it can be changed.
§ MR. BOWLESsaid then they were to take the risk of its turning out unsatisfactory. The officers of these private societies would be under two allegiances. They would have, in the first place, an allegiance to the Government and the Secretary of State, and, in the second place, their duty to the society, who, he supposed, maintained them. That was a very bad thing for the public interest, on general grounds. The clause did not say that the Secretary of State "shall" cause an institution to be inspected. It said he "may" cause. How was it to be found out that an institution was being carried on in such a way as to need inspection? Everybody knew that complaints would be made by these very officers whom he was going to appoint to find out whether the complaints were well founded. That was a position which the House ought not to sanction, and if it was done, at any rate it ought to be done on the responsibility of the Secretary of State in each case, and not upon a general order or direction of the House. He could not conceive of any reason which would induce any Government or any person to resist this Amendment in the interest of the children. He certainly saw no reason at all, except that which he was bound to say was not without operation, or had not been without operation in some portions of the Bill, namely, a desire not so much in the interests of the children as to heist up the powers, already great, of one or two of the most admirable institutions the country could boast of. He thought this was a very good and proper Amendment, and if it went to a division he should support it.
§ MR. BARRIE (Londonderry, N.)supported the Lords' Amendment, knowing what he did of the work of the National Society. That society, he was satisfied, had no desire to have a monopoly of these appointments. They only desired that where certain institutions not unknown to hon. Members of the House were suspect, they should have power to remove that suspicion. The excellent work which the society was doing was common knowledge, and as
§ one of those responsible for the appointment of these officers he thought the Government was fortunate in having the assistance of such persons. He supported the Amendment in the interest of the children who had not been properly cared for.
§ Question put.
§ The House divided:—Ayes, 198; Noes, 41. (Division List No. 455.)
1613| AYES. | ||
| Abraham, William (Cork, N. E.) | Erskine, David C. | Mackarness, Frederic C. |
| Abraham, William (Rhondda) | Esslemont, George Birnie | Maclean, Donald |
| Acland, Francis Dyke | Everett, R. Lacey | Macnamara, Dr. Thomas J. |
| Adkins, W. Ryland D. | Faber, G. H. (Boston) | MacNeill, John Gordon Swift |
| Agar-Robartes, Hon. T. C. R. | Fenwick, Charles | M'Crae, Sir George |
| Ainsworth, John Stirling | Ferens, T. R. | M'Laren, H. D. (Stafford) |
| Allen, A. Acland (Christchurch) | Foster, Rt. Hon. Sir Walter | Marnham, F. J. |
| Allen, Charles P. (Stroud) | Freeman-Thomas, Freeman | Molteno, Percy Alport |
| Ambrose, Robert | Fuller, John Michael F. | Mooney, J. J. |
| Baker, Joseph A. (Finsbury, E.) | Gill, A. H. | Morgan, G. Hay (Cornwall) |
| Barker, Sir John | Ginnell, L. | Morgan, J. Lloyd (Carmarthen) |
| Barlow, Percy (Bedford) | Gladstone, Rt Hn. Herbert John | Morrell, Philip |
| Barnard, E. B. | Glendinning, R. G. | Morse, L. L. |
| Barrie, H. T. (Londonderry, N.) | Goddard, Sir Daniel Ford | Murray, Capt. Hn A. C. (Kincard. |
| Beale, W. P. | Gooch, George Peabody (Bath) | Murray, James (Aberdeen, E.) |
| Beauchamp, E. | Grant, Corrie | Myer, Horatio |
| Beck, A. Cecil | Greenwood, G. (Peterborough) | Nannetti, Joseph P. |
| Bertram, Julius | Grey, Rt. Hon. Sir Edward | Napier, T. B. |
| Bethell, Sir J. H. (Essex, Romf'rd) | Gulland, John W. | Nolan, Joseph |
| Birrell, Rt. Hon. Augustine | Gurdon, Rt Hn. Sir W. Brampton | Norton, Capt. Cecil William |
| Boland, John | Hall, Frederick | Nussey, Thomas Willans |
| Bowerman, C. W. | Halpin, J. | O'Brien, Patrick (Kilkenny) |
| Brace, William | Harcourt, Robert V. (Montrose) | O'Connor, John (Kildare, N.) |
| Bramsdon, T. A. | Hart-Davies, T. | O'Connor, T. P. (Liverpool) |
| Brigg, John | Harvey, W. E. (Derbyshire, N. E. | O'Kelly, James (Roscommon, N. |
| Bright, J. A. | Haslam, James (Derbyshire) | Parker, James (Halifax) |
| Brooke, Stopford | Haslam, Lewis (Monmouth) | Pearce, William (Limehouse) |
| Brunner, J. F. L. (Lancs., Leigh) | Haworth, Arthur, A. | Ponsonby, Arthur A. W. H. |
| Bryce, J. Annan | Hazel, Dr. A. E. | Power, Patrick Joseph |
| Buchanan, Thomas Ryburn | Hemmerde, Edward George | Price, C. E. (Edinb'gh, Central) |
| Burt, Rt. Hon. Thomas | Herbert, Col. Sir Ivor (Mon., S.) | Radford, G. H. |
| Buxton, Rt. Hn. Sydney Charles | Herbert, T. Arnold (Wycombe) | Rainy, A. Rolland |
| Byles, William Pollard | Higham, John Sharp | Rea, Russell (Gloucester) |
| Carr-Comm, H. W. | Horniman, Emslie John | Richards, Thomas (W. Monm'th |
| Charming, Sir Francis Allston | Howard, Hon. Geoffrey | Richards, T. F. (Wolverh'mpt'n) |
| Cherry, Rt. Hon. R. R. | Illingworth, Percy H. | Ridsdale, E. A. |
| Cleland, J. W. | Jacoby, Sir James Alfred | Roberts, Charles H. (Lincoln) |
| Clough, William | Jardine, Sir J. | Robertson, Sir G. Scott (Bradf'rd |
| Cobbold, Felix Thornley | Johnson, John (Gateshead) | Robertson, J. M. (Tyneside) |
| Collins, Stephen (Lambeth) | Jones, Leif (Appleby) | Robinson, S. |
| Cooper, G. J. | Jones, William (Carnarvonshire | Roch, Walter F. (Pembroke |
| Corbett, C. H. (Sussex, E. Grinst'd | Kearley, Sir Hudson E. | Rogers, F. E. Newman |
| Cornwall, Sir Edwin A. | Kekewich, Sir George | Rose, Charles Day |
| Cotton, Sir H. J. S. | Kettle, Thomas Michael | Rowlands, J. |
| Davies, Timothy (Fulham) | Kincaid-Smith, Captain | Rutherford, V. H. (Brentford) |
| Davies, Sir W. Howell (Bristol, S.) | Lambert, George | Samuel, Rt. Hn. H. L. (Cleveland |
| Dewar, Arthur (Edinburgh, S.) | Lamont, Norman | Scott, A. H. (Ashton-under-Lyne |
| Dickinson, W. H. (St, Pancras, N. | Lehmann, R. C. | Sears, J. E. |
| Dickson-Poynder, Sir John P. | Levy, Sir Maurice | Seddon, J. |
| Duckworth, Sir James | Lloyd-George, Rt. Hon. David | Shaw, Rt. Hon. T. (Hawick B.) |
| Duncan, C. (Barrow-in-Furness) | Lyell, Charles Henry | Shipman, Dr. John G. |
| Dunne, Major B. Martin (Walsall | Lynch, H. B. | Silcock, Thomas Ball |
| Edwards, Enoch (Hanley) | Macdonald, J. R. (Leicester) | Sinclair, Rt. Hon. John |
| Edwards, Sir Francis (Radnor) | Macdonald, J. M. (Falkirk B'ghs. | Sloan, Thomas Henry |
| Smeaton, Donald Mackenzie | Walker, H. De R. (Leicester) | Wiles, Thomas |
| Steadman, W. C. | Walsh, Stephen | Wilkie, Alexander |
| Stewart, Halley (Greenock) | Ward, John (Stoke-upon-Trent) | Wilson, Hon. G. G. (Hull, W.) |
| Strachey, Sir Edward | Waring, Walter | Wilson, J. H. (Middlesbrough) |
| Straus, B. S. (Mile End) | Warner, Thomas Courtenay T. | Wilson, P. W. (St. Pancras, S.) |
| Summerbell, T. | Wason, John Cathcart (Orkney) | Wilson, W. T. (Westhoughton) |
| Talbot, Lord E. (Chichester) | Watt, Henry A. | Winfrey, R. |
| Taylor, Theodore C. (Radcliffe) | Wedgwood, Josiah C. | Yoxall, James Henry |
| Tennant, H. J. (Berwickshire) | Whitbread, Howard | |
| Thorne, G. R. (Wolverhampton | White, J. Dundas (Dumbart'nsh. | TELLERS FOR THE AYES—Mr. Joseph Pease and Mr. Herbert Lewis. |
| Thorne, William (West Ham) | White, Sir Luke (York, E. R.) | |
| Toulmin, George | White, Patrick (Meath, North) | |
| Verney, F. W. | Whitley, John Henry (Halifax) | |
| Vivian, Henry | Whittaker, Rt Hn. Sir Thomas P. | |
| NOES. | ||
| Acland-Hood, Rt Hn. Sir Alex F. | Goulding, Edward Alfred | Renwick, George |
| Anson, Sir William Reynell | Hunt, Rowland | Roberts, S. (Sheffield, Ecclesall) |
| Anstruther-Gray, Major | Lee, Arthur H. (Hants, Fareham | Ronaldshay, Earl of |
| Arkwright, John Stanhope | Lockwood, Rt. Hn. Lt.-Col. A. R. | Smith, Abel H. (Hertford, East) |
| Balcarres, Lord | Long, Col. Charles W. (Evesham) | Stanier, Beville |
| Banner, John S. Harmood- | MacCaw, William J. MacGeagh | Staveley-Hill, Henry (Staff'sh. |
| Bowles, G. Stewart | M'Arthur, Charles | Talbot, Rt Hn. J. G. (Oxf'd Univ. |
| Bull, Sir William James | Magnus, Sir Philip | Valentia, Viscount |
| Butcher, Samuel Henry | Mason, James F. (Windsor) | Wilson, A. Stanley (York, E. R.) |
| Carlile, E. Hildred | Morpeth, Viscount | Wolff, Gustav Wilhelm |
| Cecil, Lord R. (Marylebone, E.) | Pease, Herbert Pike (Darlington | Wortley, Rt. Hon. C. B. Stuart- |
| Collings, Rt. Hn. J. (Birmingh'm) | Pretyman, Ernest George | |
| Courthope, G. Loyd | Rawlinson, John Frederick Peel | TELLERS FOR THE NOES—Sir Frederick Banbury and Sir Henry Craik. |
| Cross, Alexander | Remnant, James Farquharson | |
| Fell, Arthur | Renton, Leslie |
Question put, and agreed to.
§
Lords' Amendment—
In page 17, line 22, to leave out the words two justices,' and to insert the words 'one justice.'
§ Agreed to.
§
Lords' Amendment—
In page 22, lines 3 and 4, to leave out the words 'and that person did not plead guilty or admit the truth of the information.'
§ * MR. HERBERT SAMUELpointed out that although a person might not be able to deny his guilt he should have a right to appeal on the ground that his sentence was unduly severe.
§ Agreed to.
§
Lords' Amendments—
In page 17, to leave out Clause 34.
In page 23, line 19, after the word 'person,' to insert the following new subsection: '(3) This Part of this Act shall apply in the case of a child or young person who has, before the commencement of this Act, been committed to the care of a relative or other fit person by an order made under the Prevention of Cruelty to Children Act, 1904, as if the order had been made under this Part of this Act.'
§ Agreed to.
1614
§
Lords' Amendment—
In page 23, line 30, to leave out the words 'or other person having the powers of a constable and.'
§ * MR. HERBERT SAMUELdid not move to disagree with this Amendment, which only had to deal with a very small class of persons who had the power of constables, such as railway and market constables. It was thought by the other House that it was not desirable that those people should have the power of seizure of tobacco.
§ Agreed to.
§
Lords' Amendments—
In page 23, line 36, to leave out the words 'any other person,' and to insert the words 'a park-keeper.'
In page 23, line 37, to leave out the words 'that person,' and to insert the word 'he.'
In page 24, line 1, to leave out the words 'Provided that,' and to insert the words 'and,' and after the word 'constable,' to insert the word 'or.'
In page 24, lines 1 and 2, to leave out the words 'or other person as aforesaid.'
In page 24, line 2, to leave out the word 'not,' and to leave out the word 'person,' and to insert the word 'boy.'
§ Agreed to.
1615
§
Lords' Amendment—
In page 24, line 3, after the word 'smoking,' to insert the words 'but not a girl.'
§ Read a second time.
§ * MR. HERBERT SAMUELsaid that this Amendment raised the great question of the right of search. Students of international law would know that the right of capture was generally held to involve the right of search. He gladly accepted this Lords' Amendment, which restored to the constable the right of search, the omission of which, at the instance of some hon. friends, he had been obliged to move.
§ Motion made, and Question proposed, "That this House doth agree with Lords in the said Amendment."
§ MR. JESSE COLLINGS (Birmingham, Bordesley)supposed it was useless to do more than protest against this arbitrary Amendment. It was, he was bound, to say, almost a new departure to give an ordinary constable power to search a lad. It was to him a most repulsive thing, and was entirely at variance with his ideas of police.
§ SIR F. BANBURYsaid that, so far as he could read the Amendment, the effect would be that the constable would have the power to search a lad, but not a girl. ["Hear, hear."] An hon. Member said "Hear, hear." As he understood, this power was given because the Government and their supporters were of opinion that smoking was deleterious to persons under sixteen years of age. Were the Government not of opinion that it was deleterious to a girl as much as to a boy? He quite agreed that the search was a very great alteration in the customs and habits of the English people, but if it was deleterious to a boy under sixteen, and if it was necessary in order to prevent it, to give powers of search to a constable, why not give the same power with regard to girls? Why should a girl have a privilege which a boy did not? What would a "suffragette" say to that? He understood that right hon. Gentlemen on the Treasury bench advocated the equality of the sexes. He generally desired to agree with the Lords in most of their Amendments, 1616 and the right hon. Gentleman did not, but in this case he hoped he would not agree with the Lords, or if he did, that he would make the Amendment a sensible and proper one to apply to all young people, irrespective of sex, or appoint female inspectors for female children who smoked. They were coming to this that they would all be inspected, whoever they were, on every possible and conceivable occasion. If this was the dreadful fate which was in store for the younger generation, he hoped his right hon. friend and himself would have passed away long before it came about. He besought the Government to be fair and just to both sexes, and put the same limitation upon the female sex as upon the male.
§
Lords' Amendments—
In page 24, line 25, to leave out the word 'uniformed.'
In page 24, line 26, after the word 'messenger,' to insert the words 'in uniform.'
In page 24, line 30, to leave out the word 'any,' and after the word 'material,' to insert the words 'in such form as to be capable of immediate use for smoking.'
In page 25, line 25, after the word 'period,' to insert the words 'and, when used in reference to proceedings for the purpose of enforcing an attendance order, includes any person who, by virtue of any enactment, is deemed to be a child for the purposes of the Education Acts, 1870 to 1907.'
§ Agreed to.
§
Lords' Amendment—
In page 29, line 6, to leave out the words 'Court of Summary Jurisdiction,' and insert the words 'Petty Sessional Court.'
§ * MR. HERBERT SAMUELsaid there were several Amendments to this effect, which were slightly more than drafting, and he ought to explain them. In certain Acts passed previous to 1879 a single magistrate not sitting in a Court-house had the powers of a Court of Summary Jurisdiction with regard to certain offences. They thought a single magistrate sitting in his own private room ought not to have in any circumstances the large powers which were contained in this reformatory and industrial school part of the Bill, and that they ought to be limited to 1617 Petty Sessional Courts properly constituted. For that reason they had made that alteration in the wording of the existing law in order to effect that purpose.
§ Agreed to.
§
Lords' Amendment—
In page 29, line 20, to leave out the words 'commute the order to such sentence of imprisonment,' and insert the words 'in lieu of the detention order make such order or pass such sentence.'
§ * MR. HERBERT SAMUELsaid this was in order to enable the Court, if it thought fit, instead of passing a sentence of imprisonment, to make a probation order under the Probation of Offenders Act.
§ Agreed to.
§
Lords' Amendments—
In page 29, lines 21 and 22, to leave out the words 'sentence of imprisonment,' and insert the words 'order or sentence.'
In page 29, line 22, to leave out the words 'awarded for,' and insert the words 'made or passed in respect of.'
§ Agreed to.
§
Lords' Amendment—
In page 30, lines 10 and 11, to leave out the words 'other than the mother of the child.'
§ Read a second time.
§ * MR. HERBERT SAMUELsaid this was an Amendment of some importance, to which he would ask the attention of the House. The subject was discussed at very great length in the Standing Committee, and the clause in the Bill as it left the House was the outcome of that discussion. The clause dealt with classes of children who might be sent by Courts to industrial schools, sometimes on account of some small delinquency they had themselves committed, but usually for the reason that it was necessary for the protection of the child that it should be separated from bad surroundings and brought up in the better atmosphere of an industrial school. Among the classes of cases which could, under the present law, be sent to an industrial school were 1618 children who frequented the company of reputed thieves or common or reputed prostitutes. In response to many suggestions from various quarters it was thought desirable instead of the plural in that sentence to use the singular, because cases occurred where children were in the company of a single prostitute, and it was highly desirable that the child should be taken away from such company and be sent to an industrial school. It was pointed out, however, that as soon as the singular was used instead of the plural, they had this position—that the child might be sent to an industrial school if it frequented the company of its own mother who was a prostitute, although she might have the ordinary feelings of natural affection and might do her utmost to save the child from contamination. As the result of long discussion in Committee, it was decided that this should only take effect in cases where the mother of the child was not the person concerned. Other parts of the clause enabled children to be sent to industrial schools where they were liable to contamination, whether or not the person from whom the contamination might come was the mother. For instance, Paragraph (g) of the Bill as it left the House dealt with the case of a child when lodging or residing in a house or part of a house used by any prostitute for the purpose of prostitution, or living in circumstances likely to cause, encourage, or favour the seduction or prostitution of the child. These were wide words, but the Lord Chief Justice and others did not think they were wide enough, and objected to these words "other than the mother of the child," which applied to the previous paragraph (f), and they insisted, against the protests of the Government, on omitting them. They still felt, as was felt by1 many Members, that it was too strong a thing to say that a girl was to be taken away or might be taken away from her own mother, and sent to an industrial school, merely for frequenting the company of that mother, perhaps not living in the same house, certainly not living in any place used for the purpose of prostitution—because in that case the child could be taken away, whether the prostitute were the mother or not—but merely for frequenting the company of the mother. That, it seemed 1619 to them, gave too great a power, especially when under the Bill they made it the duty of the police for the first time to bring before the Court all the children who came within the categories specified in this Clause 59. It would therefore be the duty of the police in any case where they were aware of a child, not living in the same house, but visiting or being visited by its own mother who was a woman of immoral character, immediately to bring the child before the Court with a view to getting it committed to an industrial school. He did not, however, propose to disagree with the Lords' Amendment, but he proposed to move a consequential Amendment which would be in the nature of a compromise, and which would, he thought, effect the purpose Lord Alverstone had in view, and at the same time would safeguard the clause in the manner they desired. Lord Alverstone had in view cases in which the child might be frequenting the mother who was a prostitute, and might be exposed to contamination, but not in such a way or to such an extent as to bring the child within the category of (g) in the clause. Therefore, he felt these words would meet the objections entertained by the other House and would carry out their purpose—
Provided that a child shall not be treated as coming within the description contained in paragraph (f) if the only common or reputed prostitute whose company the child frequents is the mother of the child and she exercises proper guardianship and due care to protect the child from contamination.He hoped that would meet the views of the House and would be accepted.
§ Motion made, and Question proposed, "That this House doth agree with the Lords in the said Amendment."
§ SIR F. BANBURYhoped he might encourage hon. Members opposite to disagree with the House of Lords. He thought if they would summon up their courage and disagree with the Lords on this Amendment, they would have the support of a great number of Members on that side of the House. The right hon. Gentleman had said truly that it was a very strong order to take away from the mother the care of her child. The mother might be 1620 anxious that the child should not be brought up in the life which she had led. One ought to consider that the feelings of the mother, even if she was a prostitute, were the same as the feelings of another mother who had had a better opportunity and not been led away into the paths of evil. But it might be very conceivable that the woman had no alternative, after having unfortunately gone astray, but to continue that particular life. She might be leading it because she was obliged to, and she might be taking all care of her child to prevent it falling into the same life. It did not follow that because a woman was a prostitute, or was even living a life of a prostitute, that she was bereft of maternal feelings and was not looking after the interests of her child. If she was not doing that, that was really living a regularly bad life and bringing her child up that way. The right hon. Gentleman had told them clause (g) would meet that point. All they had to fear was that possibly by some error clause (g) might not be put into operation. He did not think that was at all likely to arise, and if it did he would sooner that one case should escape than that such a very great trial to the feelings of a mother should occur as having her child taken away from her. He was inclined to think the Lords had erred in a small degree on the side of morality, and had not quite considered the effect of their Amendment. He hoped, therefore, the House would not agree with the Lords' Amendment. The Under-Secretary said he was in favour of a compromise. He thought it would be better if the Government took up the attitude of disagreeing with the Lords' Amendment. The Amendment was that the mother was to exercise proper guardianship and to protect her child from contamination. How were they going to find out that she did that? It would introduce an element of very great difficulty if they had to prove that she really did exercise due care. He thought that the Amendment really would not meet the object which he believed both sides of the House had, at heart. He hoped that the right Gentleman would reconsider his determination and disagree with the Amendment made in another place.
§ MR. HUGH LAW (Donegal, W.)said in regard to the Amendment of the right hon. Gentleman, it had been suggested to him that there might be some doubt as to the person on whom the burden of proof would rest in order to show whether the mother was exercising proper guardianship. Was the proof to be given by those who proposed that the child should be sent to an industrial school, or was the burden of proof to be on the mother? In the second place, what exactly was meant by "contamination"? Had the Government in mind mental as well as physical contamination? It had been suggested to him that the word "contamination" might be taken to mean moral contamination. If there was any doubt, he would ask the Under-Secretary to consider whether it might not be necessary to add other words to make it quite clear, and he would suggest that the words "protected from defilement or contamination" might be used, the object being to make it quite clear that the word "contamination" carried the clause further than the Amendment of the right hon. Gentleman.
§ MR. H. J. TENNANTasked whether this was an agreed clause between the right hon. Gentleman and the Lord Chief Justice. It did not seem to him that the word "contamination" was sufficient, and the words suggested by the hon. Member for Donegal would avoid any ambiguity.
§ * MR. STUART WORTLEYwas understood to say the danger was that a woman might be subject to the punishment of having her child taken from her against her will on the sole ground that she was leading an immoral life, and they should not forget, in dealing with this case, that there were what were called Government Grant hunters, who got grants for industrial schools by sweeping as many children as they could into them, and with the least amount of discrimination. He admitted that the case was very different where the mother failed to exercise proper guardianship, and due care to protect her child from defilement or contamination. He supported the Amendment of the right hon. Gentleman the Under-Secretary, who had succeeded in meeting the difficulty.
§ MR. CHERRYsaid that as a general rule the Onus of proof rested with those who made the assertion, and as a general rule the onus of proof was on the prosecution, but if the mother wished to have her child under her own protection then she would have the benefit of the clause, and the onus of proof would be on her. It was an onus which could be very easily discharged, because if she had really been looking after her child she would be able to prove it.
§ MR. BONAR LAWasked whether she would have to satisfy the Court.
§ MR. CHERRYthought that was already in the clause.
§ MR. CHERRYthought as the words stood that the mother would be required to satisfy the Court. No question would arise on that point. As regarded the point in reference to the word "contamination," he did not think it was a word which in law was called "a term of art." It had the ordinary meaning that any person of commonsense would put upon it. He should take it that "contamination" meant either mental or physical contamination. In reply to the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Sheffield he would point out that they were not dealing with the punishment of the mother. All that the Bill proposed to do was to save the child. He could conceive a case in which the mother would rather bear the punishment of separation from her child than see it contaminated.
§ MR. POWER (Waterford, E.)thought there was a great deal in the suggestion of his hon. friend the Member for Donegal. It should be made clear that the contamination was to be mental or physical, and the right hon. Gentleman's Amendment was too vague as it stood.
§ MR. MACLEAN (Bath)said the Amendment of the Lords altered the law as it had been for the last thirty years, and the words relating to the mother of the child had been introduced for the first time in consequence 1623 of a strong appeal made by the majority of the Committee upstairs. He had a practical knowledge of these matters, and he thought the Amendment to the Lords' Amendment as proposed by his right hon. friend fully and amply met the case.
§ * MR. BYLES (Salford, N.)said that if the hon. Baronet the Member for the City went to a division, he would go into the lobby with him. He did not know how to express his strong objection to taking children from their mothers, even mothers leading immoral lives. He believed it to be the actual fact that in some cases mothers were so anxious to bring up their children well, and have them properly educated, that they resorted to habits of immorality in order that they might earn money to defray the expense of having them properly cared for and instructed. He agreed that his right hon. friend had done his best by his words of compromise between the form of the Lords' Amendment and the original form of the clause, but he should vote with the hon. Baronet opposite.
§ MR. COCHRANErather sympathised with the right hon. Gentleman opposite, but he did not like the words "from contamination," which appeared to be ambiguous and not at all easy of interpretation. The Attorney-General for Ireland, who had given an opinion, was not able exactly to define what "contamination" meant.
§ MR. CHERRYI said it was not "a word of art," and had no special meaning in law. It is a word which has an ordinary signification, that any person of commonsense would understand.
§ MR. COCHRANEsaid the words "from contamination" did nothing to strengthen the clause. The mother was to exercise proper guardianship and due care for the protection of her child, and that would cover every contamination or any other evil. It would only weaken the clause to put in the words "from contamination." He suggested the omission of those words.
§ * MR. HERBERT SAMUELsaid all words were open to criticism, and he 1624 thought the proposal of the hon. Gentleman to leave out the words "from contamination" would also possibly be open to objection, because no one would know what the child was to be protected from. On the advice of his right hon. friend the Lord Advocate and his right hon. friend the Attorney-General for Ireland, he thought it would be better to leave the Lords' Amendment as it stood.
§
Consequential Amendment made—
In page 30, line 20, at the end, by inserting 'provided that a child shall not be treated as coming within the description contained in paragraph (f) if the only common or reputed prostitute whose company the child frequents is the mother of the child and she exercises proper guardianship and due care to protect the child from contamination.'"—(Mr. Herbert Samuel.)
§
Lords' Amendments—
In page 30, line 17, to leave out the word 'child,' and to insert the word 'person.'
In page 30, line 22, after the word 'Court,' to insert the words 'of Assize or Quarter Sessions or a Petty Sessional Court.'
In page 30, line 29, to leave out the words 'Court of Summary Jurisdiction,' and to insert the words 'Petty Sessional Court.'
In page 31, line 29, to leave out the words 'Court of Summary Jurisdiction,' and to insert the words 'Petty Sessional Court.'
In page 32, line 20, to leave out the words 'young person,' and to insert the words 'person apparently of the age of fourteen or fifteen, years.'
In page 32, after Clause 60, to insert Clause (a): '(a) Where under the provisions of this Part of this Act an order is made for the committal of a child or young person to the care of a relative or other fit person named by the Court, the Court may, in addition to such order make an order under the Probation of Offenders Act, 1907, that the child or young person be placed under the supervision of a probation officer. Provided that the recognizance into which the child, if not charged with an offence, or the young person is required to enter, shall bind him to appear and submit to the further order of the Court.'
In page 32, line 30, to leave out the words 'herein-after,' and to insert the words 'in this Act.'
In page 33, line 2, after the word 'shall,' to insert the words 'subject to the provisions of this Act with respect to the determination of the place of residence of a youthful offender or child.'
In page 34, line 34, to leave out the words 'or a Court of Summary Jurisdiction.'
In page 34, line 35, to leave out the words 'or Court of Summary Jurisdiction.'
In page 36, line 27, after the word 'liable,' to insert the words 'on summary conviction.'
§ Agreed to.
1625
§
Lords' Amendment—
In page 38, line 28, after the word 'service,' to insert the words 'including service in the Navy or Army.'
§ * MR. HERBERT SAMUELsaid this was purely a drafting Amendment, inserted to remove any possible ambiguity as to the meaning.
§ Agreed to.
§
Lords' Amendments—
In page 40, lines 32 and 33, to leave out the words 'to a fine not exceeding twenty pounds.'
In page 40, line 34, after the word 'labour,' to insert the words 'or to a fine not exceeding twenty pounds.'
In page 41, line 28, after the word 'imposed,' to insert the words 'under this section,' and after the word 'local,' to insert the word 'education.'
In page 41, lines 28 and 29, to leave out the words 'under this section.'
In page 42, line 4, after the word 'local,' to insert the word "education.'
In page 42, line 10, to leave out the words 'or a Court of Summary Jurisdiction,' and after the word 'local,' to insert the word 'education.'
In page 42, line 14, after the word 'authority,' to insert the words 'that is to say, as respects reformatory schools, the council of a county or county borough, and as respects industrial schools, a local education authority.
In page 42, line 34, to leave out from the word 'authority 'to the word 'a' in line 38.
In page 43, line 17, to leave out the word 'be,' and to insert the word 'continue.'
In page 43, lines 17 and 18, to leave out the words 'in the school in which he is for the time being detained,' and to insert the words' in the event of his transfer to another certified school.'
In page 45, line 18, after the word 'Act,' to insert as a new subsection: '(18) As respects the City of London the Common Council shall, notwithstanding anything in this section, be the local authority liable for providing for the reception and maintenance in a certified reformatory school of a youthful offender committed by a Petty Sessional Court acting in and for the City. Provided that nothing in this provision shall exempt the City of London from contributing towards the expenses incurred by the London County Council in respect of reformatory schools, but the London County Council shill in each year repay to the Common Council for each youthful offender maintained by that Council a sum equal to the average cost to the London County Council in that year of the maintenance of a youthful offender in a reformatory school for whose maintenance the London County Council are responsible, which cost shall be ascertained in accordance with the directions of the Secretary of State.'
§ Agreed to.
1626
§
Lords' Amendment—
In page 45, line 19, to leave out the words 'for the time being.'
§ * MR. HERBERT SAMUELsaid this Amendment had been inserted at the request of the hon. Baronet the Member for the City of London. It was fully explained on the Report stage, and it simply carried out an undertaking which was then given.
§ Agreed to.
§
Lords' Amendments—
In page 46, line 26, after the word 'made,' to insert the words 'or any Court of like jurisdiction.'
In page 47, lines 6 and 7, to leave out the words 'for the time being.'
'"In page 47, line 31, to leave out the word '3,' and to insert the words 'Provided that.'
In page 50, line 2, to leave out from the word 'pay' to the end of the clause.
In page 51, line 18, after the word 'summons,' to insert the word 'issued,' and after the word 'notice,' to insert the word 'given.'
In page 52, line 35, after the word 'officer,' to insert the words 'of the school.'
In page 52, line 36, to leave out the words 'of the school.'
§ Agreed to.
§
Lords' Amendment—
In page 53, line 10, to leave out from the word 'passed' to the end of the clause.
§ * MR. HERBERT SAMUELsaid these words were inserted to give certain existing officers of the London County Council the security to which they were entitled. It had since been found that the words were superfluous because there were now no officers so entitled.
§ Agreed to.
§
Lords' Amendments—
In page 53, line 21, to leave out the words 'Part of this.'
In page 53, line 22, after the word 'by,' to insert the words 'or liability imposed on.'
§ Agreed to.
§
Lords' Amendment—
In page 53, line 23, after the word 'child,' to insert the words 'or prevent any local authority from continuing to make any contribution which they were making before the commencement of this Act.'
§ * MR. HERBERT SAMUELsaid this Amendment was to give any local authority at present making a voluntary contribution power to continue making such contribution although the authorities dealing with the matter were not the same under this Bill. There was a slight transfer of authority — for instance a county council might now contribute to an industrial school, but a county council which was now contributing and wished to continue contributing in respect of some particular child would not under this Amendment be deprived of its power of doing so because the law had been altered by this Bill and education authorities were made the industrial school authorities.
§ Agreed to.
§
Lords' Amendments—
In page 56, line 8, after the word 'revoked,' to insert the words 'by any Court of Summary Jurisdiction acting in or for the place in or for which the Court which made the order acted.'
In page 59, line 6, to leave out the words 'child or young.'
In page 59, line 7, after the word 'state,' to insert the words 'under the last two foregoing sections of this Act.'
In page 61, line 10, to leave out the words 'committed to,' and to insert the words 'detained in.'
In page 61, line 11, to leave out the words 'committed to,' and to insert the words 'detained in.'
In page 61, line 27, after the word 'bring,' to insert the words 'a person.'
§ Agreed to.
§
Consequential Amendment made—
In page 61, line 28, by inserting after the word 'coming,' the words 'or as being a person who if a child would come.'"—(Mr. Herbert Samuel.)
§
Lords' Amendment—
In page 61, line 33, after the word 'Court' to insert the words 'in like manner as if he had been apprehended.'
§ Agreed to.
§
Lords' Amendment—
In page 62, line 4, after the word 'country,' to insert the words '(12) The Local Government Board may by Order transfer from the Metropolitan Asylums Board to the London County Council any buildings provided by the Metropolitan Asylums Board for the purpose
1628
of remand homes under Section 4 of the Youthful Offenders Act, 1901, together with any liabilities incurred by the Metropolitan Asylums Board in connection with such buildings, and on such transfer the buildings shall become places of detention for the purposes of this Part of this Act, and the order may also provide for the transfer of any officers employed by the Metropolitan Asylums Board in connection with such remand homes, and for securing to such officers any rights as to pension or otherwise to which they may be entitled.'
§ * MR. HERBERT SAMUELsaid this Amendment provided for the proper transfer of existing buildings from the Metropolitan Asylums Board to the London County Council which in the future would be the authority for maintaining places of detention under this Bill.
§ Agreed to.
§
Lords' Amendments—
In page 62, line 15, to leave out the words 'to,' and to insert the word 'in,' and to leave out the word 'committed,' and to insert the word 'detained.'
In page 62, line 20, to leave out the words 'committed to,' and to insert the words 'detained in.'
In page 63, line 3, after the word 'standing,' to insert the word 'joint.'
§ Agreed to.
§
Lords' Amendment—
In page 63, line 16, after the first word 'and,' to insert the words 'a Court of Summary Jurisdiction so sitting is in this Act referred to as a Juvenile Court. (2) Where in the course of any proceedings in a Juvenile Court it appears to the Court that the person charged or to whom the proceedings relate is of the age of sixteen years or upwards, or where in the course of any proceedings in any Court of Summary Jurisdiction other than a Juvenile Court, it appears that the person charged or to whom the proceedings relate is under the age of sixteen years, nothing in this section shall be construed as preventing the Court, if it thinks it undesirable to adjourn the case, from proceeding with the hearing and determination of the case.'
§ MR. HERBERT SAMUELsaid this sub-clause had been inserted to meet the case of a child who might be found to be a few months over sixteen or a little under the age of sixteen, in which case it was obviously undesirable to begin the proceedings all over again. This Amendment would enable the Court to proceed with or transfer the case as it thought fit.
§ Agreed to.
1629
§
Lords' Amendments—
In page 63, lines 16 and 17, to leave out the words 'children and young persons,' and to insert the words 'persons apparently under the age of sixteen years.'
In page 63 line 20, to leave out the words 'child or young persons,' and to insert the words 'person apparently under the age of sixteen years.'
In page 63, line 1, to leave out the words 'At any such hearing,' and to insert the words 'In a Juvenile Court.'
§ Agreed to.
§
Lords' Amendment—
In page 63, line 33, after the word 'order,' to insert the words 'and where such an order is made the London County Council shall, if so required by the Secretary of State, provide the necessary accommodation for the purpose at any place of detention provided by the Council upon such terms as to payment and otherwise as may be agreed between the Secretary of State and the Council, or, in default of agreement, as may be settled by the Treasury. (6) Where it is proved to the satisfaction of the Secretary of State that arrangements cannot be made for the purpose of complying with this section in any place by the first day of April, nineteen hundred and nine, the Secretary of State may by order postpone the coming into operation of this section as respects that place until such date, not later than the first day of January, nineteen hundred and ten, as may be specified in the order.'
§ Read a second time.
§ MR. HERBERT SAMUELsaid it had been the intention that these Courts should be held in the places of detention, and it was thought that the remand homes would have afforded sufficient accommodation to enable the magistrates to sit there where the witnesses and officers could attend. At present the duty of providing Juvenile Courts rested with the Home Secretary, who had to provide Court Houses, but the duty of providing places of detention rested with the London Comity Council under this Bill. This subsection had been inserted so that there would be no friction between the Secretary of State for the Home Department and the London County Council, and the Treasury had agreed to this Amendment. The second subsection dealt with the case where a Juvenile Court could not be properly provided before 1st April. In such cases the Home Secretary would be given power to postpone the operation of this clause.
§ Motion made, and Question proposed, "That this House doth agree with the Lords in the said Amendment."
§ SIR F. BANBURYasked whether it was absolutely necessary to bring in the London County Council in this particular. He did not think the County Council should be brought in in Courts of Law and places of that sort. If it was not absolutely necessary, he hoped the right hon. Gentleman would not insist upon this.
§ MR. HERBERT SAMUELsaid that that point did not arise on this particular Amendment. In another part of the Bill the London County Council was named as the authority in cases of detention.
§ MR. H. J. TENNANTasked with regard to the second part of the Amendment whether it applied to London. He did not think it did. He hoped it would not be applicable to London.
§ MR. HERBERT SAMUELsaid it was very possible that the Courts proposed to be set up would not be sufficient, and therefore it was necessary that the Secretary of State should have power to postpone the coming into force of the section in order that the necessary arrangements might be made.
§ MR. STUART WORTLEYasked what provision, if any, was made for the admission of the public. If in these Courts young persons were to be deprived of their liberty the Press ought to have notice of the proceedings.
§ MR. HERBERT SAMUELsaid that question did not arise on this Amendment. It was provided for in Clause 111.
§
Lords' Amendment—
In page 64, line 14, to leave out the word 'January,' and to insert the word 'April.'
§ MR. HERBERT SAMUELsaid the machinery for bringing this Bill into operation was exceedingly elaborate. The Home Office would have to make a large number of regulations, and Orders in Council would have to be made, and it 1631 was to give the authorities time to make the arrangements required in regard to the various parts of the Bill that this alteration of the date was necessary. It was absolutely impossible to bring it into operation by 1st February next.
§ Agreed to.
§
Lords' Amendments—
In page 64, line 21, after the word 'where,' to insert the words 'a person who, in the opinion of the Court is.',
In page 65, line 9, to leave out the words 'can prove,' and to insert the words 'proves.'
§ Agreed to.
§
Lords' Amendment—
In page 65, line 15, to leave out the words 'unfit to have care of,' and to insert the words 'not to be exercising proper guardianship over.'
§ SIR HENRY CRAIKsaid the clause would not read unless the words "to be" were also omitted.
§ MR. HERBERT SAMUELsaid that could be done as a matter of printing.
§ SIR HENRY CRAIKsaid it was too serious a matter to be dealt with as a matter of printing.
§ Agreed to.
§
Consequential Amendment made—
In page 65, line 15, by leaving out the words 'to be.'"—Sir Henry Craik.
§
Lords' Amendment—
In page 65, line 26, after the word 'Part,' to insert the words '(3) Without prejudice to the requirements of the Education Acts, 1870 to 1907, as to school attendance or to proceedings thereunder, this section shall not apply during the months of April to September, inclusive, to any child whose parent or guardian is engaged in a trade or business of such a nature as to require him to travel from place to place, and who has obtained a certificate of having made not less than two hundred attendances at a public elementary school during the months of October to March immediately preceding, and the power of the Board of Education to make regulations with respect to the issue of certificates of due attendance for the purposes of the Education Acts, 1870 to 1907, shall include a power to make regulations as to the issue of certificates of attendance for the purposes of this section.'
§ Read a second time.
1632§ * MR. HERBERT SAMUELsaid that this Amendment touched the part of the Bill dealing with vagrants. The clause provided that if a person was wandering about the country with his child and depriving the child of education, there would be a summary process by which the Education Act could be enforced. At present the Education Act was unenforceable in the case of those vagrants; they contemplated that a parent or guardian would reside in a district, and the child be known to the School Attendance Officer of the district; but if a man and his child went through the country, passing from the jurisdiction of one local authority to that of another, he was practically exempt from the whole of the provisions of the Elementary Education Acts. It had been felt, however, that the proposal in the Bill might be too severe on the class of respectable gipsies, of whom there were some. These people, as a matter of fact, took winter quarters, and they were willing to educate their children then. Their business required them to wander about the country in the summer months, and they thought they should not be separated from their children. It was with very much reluctance that he agreed to accept an Amendment of the clause. They did not, however, mitigate the existing law with regard to education so far as it was applicable. They mitigated the new powers supplementary to the Education Act in cases where it was shown that a child had attended school during the winter months.
§ Motion made and Question proposed, "That this House doth agree with the Lords in the said Amendment."
§ VISCOUNT MORPETH (Birmingham, S.)asked what was meant by the words "without prejudice to the requirements of the Education Acts, 1870 to 1907, as to school attendance or to proceedings thereunder, this Act shall not apply …" Did the right hon. Gentleman mean that if the officers of the education committees could catch those children they should apply the usual compulsory powers as to attendance? It seemed to him that it would be better to state quite frankly 1633 that this was to a certain extent an infraction of the ordinary rules, and that it should be put down as an exception with respect to a special class of children.
§ * MR. HERBERT SAMUELsaid there was no intention to diminish the powers of the Education Acts. The clause which had been drafted in consultation with the Education Department did not interfere with the existing law.
§ SIR F. BANBURYsaid that in the months October to March there were twenty weeks, and he did not know how they were to get 200 attendances at school from a child in that time. It could be done by counting two attendances on one day, but he did not understand that, attendances were reckoned in that way.
§
Lords' Amendment—
In page 65, line 29, to leave out the words 'or nurse.'
§ Agreed to.
§
Lords' Amendment—
In page 65, line 32, after Clause 119, to insert new Clause (B): (b) (1) The holder of the licence of any licensed premises shall not allow a child to be at any time in the bar of the licensed premises, except during the hours of closing. (2) If the holder of a licence acts in contravention of this section, or if any person causes or procures, or attempts to cause or procure, any child to go to or to be in the bar of any licensed premises except during the hours of closing, he shall be liable, on summary conviction, to a fine not exceeding, in respect of the first offence, forty shillings, and in respect of any subsequent offence, five pounds. (3) If a child is found in the bar of any licensed premises, except during the hours of closing, the holder of the licence shall be deemed to have committed an offence under this section unless he shows that he has used due diligence to prevent the child being admitted to the bar. (4) Nothing in this section shall apply in the case of a child who is resident but not employed in the licensed premises or in the case of premises constructed, fitted, and intended to be used in good faith for any purpose to which the holding of a licence is merely auxiliary. (5) In this section the bar of licensed premises means any open drinking bar or any part of the premises exclusively or mainly used for the sale and consumption of intoxicating liquor, and
1634
the expressions "licence" and "licensed premises" have the same meaning as in the Licensing Acts, 1828 to 1906.'
§ Read a second time.
§ MR. FELL (Great Yarmouth) moved to leave out subsection (1). He said the clause was a familiar one, having appeared in the Licensing Bill which was before the House for some months. It was mentioned when the Bill was originally introduced, but he found no mention of it after that. There were points in the clause which required careful consideration. He did not think that that should apply to railway station refreshment rooms, and if the Government were going to omit railway station bars from the clause, his objection to it would be minimised. There were many considerations which would arise out of the clause, and they must weigh the advantages and disadvantages. There might be strong reasons why children up to the age of fourteen years should not be allowed to enter the bar of licensed premises. Certainly they should not be allowed to enter a bar for the purpose of obtaining drink for themselves. But this clause was not directed against children being within bars of public-houses for that purpose. The question then arose, what damage was done by children being on licensed premises during the open hours. He did not think that the children of the upper classes would go into any bar of licensed premises except at railway stations, and even then on very rare occasions. He had known cases of a man with his boy under fourteen years of age who came from the country, and who wished to obtain refreshment for himself at a bar, and he hoped that such a case would be covered by the Amendment. Again, supposing a man went down to the country with his family for the day, and on his return to town he wanted to have some refreshment, why should he not be permitted to take his children with him into the licensed premises, when he only desired to have a glass of beer for himself? According to this clause, he would have to leave his children outside while he went into the licensed premises to obtain his refreshment. Again, supposing there were a number of trippers down at a seaside resort, 1635 that they were on the beach, that a sudden storm came on, that they rushed to the nearest shelter which was a public-house, asked for refreshment, and had their children with them under fourteen years of age. Would these trippers have to leave their children outside in the storm while the parents were having their refreshment? Again, supposing a working man and his family were travelling and wished to obtain some refreshment at some railway station or junction, but the man could not afford to go into the railway refreshment room and desired to go to some cheaper place near by. Were the children to be left outside in such an event while the parents were obtaining their refreshment? Yet again, if a girl just over fourteen was to be allowed to go into a bar there was a tendency for such an one to exercise the privilege, and that would increase the danger that indubitably arose from the admission of young people into public-house bars. He himself did not believe that children under fourteen years of age had the slightest liking to go into public-house bars. They did not like the smell of the public-house. But his objection to the clause took a much wider and broader ground, and that was whether they were not by this kind of legislation levelling down instead of levelling up the character of licensed premises by putting a stigma on anyone entering them. There had been a great deal of discussion of late as to raising the character and tone of public-houses. He maintained that the clause would tend to lower their character. Their object should be to encourage the improvement of public-houses; to induce the licensees to make them lighter, brighter, and more cleanly; to make the houses more like the refreshment houses in France and Germany, where children might enjoy a cup of coffee while their parents were having a glass of beer or a glass of wine. The sobriety of the working classes in France and Germany was largely owing to the fact that they could take their children with them into these cafes and restaurants. He questioned on all these grounds whether the clause was a judicious one, 1636 and he doubted whether it would have the effect intended by its promoters. Unless it was amended he would be compelled to vote against it; but, if amended, it might to a great deal of good.
§ MR. RENWICK (Newcastle-on-Tyne)seconded the Amendment. He said this important question ought, properly, to have been dealt with in the Licensing Bill, and it was extraordinary to see that the House which had rejected that measure should have inserted this very important part of it in this Bill. He opposed the whole clause, because he thought it would inflict very serious injustice upon the poorer classes. It should be remembered that in a very large number of public-houses the bar was unfortunately the only public part of the house. It ought not to be so. The bar, as a drinking bar, ought to be done away with altogether. But the fact remained that the bars were there, and it would be a very great injustice to the poorer classes who wished to enter one of these houses for purposes of refreshment to be compelled to leave their children outside. Children would suffer less inside the house than by being left outside. In houses where the bar was not the only room in the house two prices were charged. One was known as the bar price and the other as the parlour price. A poor person who could not afford the higher price entered the bar for the purpose of getting the lower priced drink, and there he possibly saw the person who could afford to pay the higher price passing through the bar with his family on the way to the other room. That was a decided injustice, and seemed to imply that there was one law for the poor and another for the rich, but so long as public-houses remained as at present with the bar in many cases as the only room, it would be inopportune to agree to the Lords' Amendment. They ought to endeavour to arrive at a higher ideal of public-house, first doing away with the bar altogether, and then providing accommodation as it was on the Continent, where a man thought it no shame to take his wife and family to get refreshment. He begged to second.
§
Amendment proposed to the Lords' Amendment—
In line 1, to leave out subsection (1,)—(Mr. Fell.)
§ Question proposed, "That the words proposed to be left out, to the word 'to,' in line 2, stand part of the Lords' Amendment."
§ * MR. HERBERT SAMUELsaid this was a clause which he felt sure would command the very general sympathy of the House. In the other House it was passed without a word of opposition being raised against it, although full opportunity was given for discussion, and after the wanton destruction of so many good proposals in their Licensing Bill they were grateful that this measure, at least, had been saved. He thought that even the representatives of the liquor trade in the House would not object to the principle underlying the clause, which provided that the holder of the licence of any licensed premises should not allow a child to be at any time in the bar, except during the hours of closing. The hon. Member who moved the rejection of subsection (1) said that children did not frequent bars, but if he had read the Returns which were placed by the Home Office upon the Table of the House, giving the opinion of the chief constables of our great cities, he was sure he would not have made that statement. The chief constable of Birmingham said the practice of women taking infants and young children into public-houses was "general and very extensive." Ten public-houses were watched for eight hours per day for sixteen days with the result that 2,949 children were seen to be taken in by women; very many being babies in arms, and practically none over five were included in the figure. In Bristol, the chief constable said—
My personal experience of the prevelance of the practice is backed up by the whole of my superintendents, and we are agreed that the practice of allowing children in public-houses is most disastrous.A number of houses, 472, he said, were watched for nine hours a day, and in a fortnight 2,441 children under twelve were seen to be taken in, including 1,041 under two years old. But 15 of these 472 houses accounted for no less 1638 than 1,542 children. In London, twenty-three houses were watched for four days, and 10,746 children were taken in, 1,164 being in arms, the remainder under sixteen. The Commissioner of Police informed them that over 1,000 persons a year were arrested for being drunk while having the care of children under seven. In Manchester, twenty-four houses were watched for eight hours a day on twelve days, and 8,973 children were seen to be taken in, 6,471 being under five years of age, the remainder under fourteen. In Sheffield six houses were watched for about eight hours a day for a fortnight, and 1,181 children under six years of age were seen to be taken in. Yet the hon. Member for Great Yarmouth said it was not the practice of children to frequent the bars of public-houses. When the Licensing Bill was under discussion he went one night at about midnight to visit a large number of public-houses in the neighbourhood of Ratcliff Highway. The houses there were so thick that in the space of one hour, without hurrying, he was able to visit thirty houses, and to peep into over 100 separate bars. He found even so late as that, and it was not a Saturday night, some children there with their mothers, and in one he remembered seeing an unhappy, ragged little boy asleep on the dirty sawdust floor, while the mother was drinking with a baby asleep in her arms. Sights such as these ought not to be tolerated if it was possible to put an end to mischief of that character. Even if in some exceptional cases some inconvenience would be caused, nevertheless the good that they would do would outweigh the evil. If this clause was passed it might incidentally have a certain indirect effect in lessening the drinking of many women, for many of them were not so unnatural as to leave their children unattended. It they were not allowed to take the children into the public-houses, he felt sure that a considerable number of them would stop at home. He would point out that this clause did not prohibit the taking of children on to licensed premises. He hoped that hon. Members opposite who spoke on this clause would remember that fact. The clause did not say that the child was not to be taken on licensed premises; it said that the child 1639 was not to be taken into the bar of licensed premises as defined in the clause. The Bill forbade the taking of children to any open drinking bar or any part of the premises exclusively or mainly used for the sale and consumption of intoxicating liquors. If the bar was not an open drinking bar which was being used for the consumption of liquors, if it was a bar for "off" sale, a child might be taken there. It was important to note one point in connection with the vexed and controversial question of child messengers. The Intoxicating Liquor (Sale to Children) Act of 1901 prohibited the sale of intoxicating liquor to children under fourteen years of age save in corked and sealed vessels in quantities of not less than a pint for consumption off the premises, and where there was a bona fide jug and bottle department, this clause would not prevent the children from going into it for the purpose of obtaining liquor as prescribed by the statute. Hon. Members might say that they did not go far enough, and they ought to prohibit all children being on the premises altogether, but at all events, that was not the object of this clause of their Licensing Bill which was now embodied in the Bill. They provided that the child should not be exposed to the contamination of being in a drinking bar which was used mainly for drinking purposes, but the child was allowed to be on licensed premises, and could still be in the dining-room attached to a public-house, or the parlour, or any other part of the premises which was not used solely or mainly for the sale of intoxicating liquor. He knew that the hon. Member for Newcastle thought that if possible they ought to raise the character of the public-house, and indirectly he thought this would effect that, because if any licensed person desired that parents should come to his house for tea picnics he would provide a part of his premises for that purpose which would not be used exclusively or mainly for the sale of intoxicating liquor. In that way they might do something to improve the public-house. The clause did not apply to any premises constructed, fitted, and intended to be used in good faith for any purpose to which the holding of a licence was merely auxiliary, the words being taken from the Licensing Act 1640 of 1904. They covered hotels, restaurants, and eating-houses, and he was advised that they clearly covered railway refreshment rooms, but lest there should be some doubt as to whether they did he thought it better to have it clearly stated that railway refreshment rooms were included in the exemption, and he had put down an Amendment. It had been pointed out that in Ireland the clause as it stood would cause extreme inconvenience because the majority of licensed premises in Ireland were at the same time shops for the sale of groceries, ironmongery, meat, or other articles. It would be inconvenient if children could not go into the shops for groceries, meat, or ironmongery, merely because a part of the premises was used for drinking. The Government, therefore, had put down an Amendment specially designed to meet the case of Ireland and limit the application of this clause so far as Ireland was concerned only to those licensed premises that were public-houses as we understood them in England. It had been represented to the Government very strongly by persons holding very different views as to the liquor trade in Ireland that it would be an extreme hardship if children were prevented from going into an ordinary grocers' or ironmongery or butchers' shop simply because in a portion of the premises liquor was supplied. The whole system was an evil one, but there it was, and they had to deal with it. He had another Amendment on the Paper which was little more than of a drafting character, but he could assure the House that the Government would not accept any Amendment to this clause which would in any degree run counter to the main purpose of it or which would lend itself to evasion. Parliament had frequently, on the question of liquor, drawn a clear line between the child and the adult. Under the law as it now stood, no child under the age of fourteen could be served with intoxicating liquor for his own consumption, no child under sixteen could be served with spirits for his own consumption, and no child under fourteen could be supplied with intoxicating liquor for the consumption of others unless it was in a sealed vessel. This clause carried the principle a step further. It was a most desirable clause, and he hoped the 1641 House would support its retention in the Bill.
§ MR. JESSE COLLINGSfound difficulty in understanding how the right hon. Gentleman could describe the effect of the clause as he had, having regard to the definition. The definition stated that a bar meant any open drinking bar or any part of the premises used mainly or exclusively for the sale or consumption of intoxicating liquor. In the great majority of the public-houses in the country districts every room was a bar under that definition, except the bed-rooms. Therefore, no child must be found in a public-house at all. This was nothing more than class legislation, because it would only be the poorer and smaller public-houses that would be affected. It was aimed at the working and poorer classes by persons who did not understand their requirements—persons who had their clubs and every convenience, and lost sight altogether of the necessities of these classes. No doubt there were to be seen sights and scenes owing to women taking their children into public-houses, and they touched the hearts of all. Everybody would be glad to do away with them if the remedy was not worse than the evil itself. But that class, after all, was a small one as compared with the 18,000,000 adult people of this country. The number who so misused their powers were the smallest possible fraction of the whole whose liberties and comfort this Bill was to affect. Because there were a few people who were lunatics, that was no reason for treating the whole community as if they were lunatics. The clause was never discussed in Committee or in the House. It was suddenly put in in the House of Lords, and now they were to accept it at the will of the Government. It was only another instance of legislation by machinery. The effect would be to destroy the liberty of the working classes. Every Saturday, and often on Sunday, the working men with their wives and families went out in brakes and vans to the country side. They wanted refreshment, and were not content with lemonade—they wanted their glass of beer. No one should discourage 1642 any movement on the part of a working man who took his wife and family with him. But under this clause, if they happened to be in the country, and had children under fourteen with them, if they wanted a glass of beer what were they to do with their children? Were they to leave them outside? To say that if a man wanted some refreshment he was not to take his children with him was a piece of tyranny that was hardly conceivable. There were hundreds of thousands of working men who had their mid-day meal brought to them—he had seen working men in the public-house with the packet of food brought to them by their wives, who invariably brought a young child or two with them. It was the only time the working men saw their children during the week. They left home when the children were asleep, and returned after they were in bed. He had seen hundreds of such cases, and the picture made by the man with his child on his knee and his wife beside him was a perfect idyll of domestic felicity, which it did one good to remember. What now must the wife do under this clause? She must leave the child outside on the doorstep, because that was what the Bill, if it were passed in this form, would effect. He was not speaking of the gin palaces and bars of London, which were comparatively few in number. He was referring to country places where the children were sent for the beer. The mother could not go, for her hands were full with her household work and with the duty of preparing the meals; nor could the father go, for he had his daily work to attend to. He did not speak on this question as a Party man. Were he to do so, he should desire nothing better than to see this clause passed, because he was quite sure that when the poorer classes came to realise how it worked there would be another strong case added to the cases which made the legislation of this Government so unpopular. There was nothing which would tell against the Government so much as this interference with the common liberties and rights of the people, which the House of Commons ought never to touch. Were they losing their sense of liberty altogether? And there was the Labour Party. He was 1643 speaking of those who talked of democracy. It was not democracy; it was tyranny masquerading in the cap of liberty. He was taught a different democracy, and he thought he had retained it. This clause interfered with the daily life and common liberties of the poor, simply because they were poor. It was another case of making poverty a crime. He felt, however, that it was useless to protest. The machine was set, and it would pass the clause. But there was an opinion behind the clause, that of the people of the country, and not of faddists, extremists, and men who had formed societies with secretaries, and all the necessary organisation of societies which made noise entirely out of proportion to their voting power. On the first opportunity, the people would make it known that they resented this interference with their common rights and liberties. In this, as in other matters, the legislation of the Government was a mistake. Let him tell the Prime Minister that it was an arch mistake to treat the voice of small sections of the community, organised into societies with secretaries, and with a voting power not by any means equivalent to the clamour they made, as the voice of the people. That was the great mistake of the Government, and one which would bring them, if it had not already brought them, to ruin. He challenged the right hon. Gentleman to deny that. The Government had taken fractions of the people, and because they were noisy and made great demands, backed up by sensational statements, they treated them as voicing the will of the great mass of the people. It was because of that mistake that they dared not go to the country, for they would find it difficult to explain or justify such a clause as this.
§ MR. LEIF JONES (Westmoreland, Appleby)said the right hon. Gentleman had told them, quite unnecessarily, that working men were fond of their children. It was just because they were fond of their children that they were found supporting this clause, and he confidently challenged the right hon. Gentleman to say that the working men of the country were not in favour of this clause to keep their children out of public-house bars. The representatives 1644 of the working men in that House, one and all, supported the clause, and those of them who were in touch with the constituencies knew that letter after letter came welcoming the insertion of this clause. The reason that working men throughout the country supported this clause was that they preferred their homes to the public-house, which was so dear to the right hon. Gentleman.
§ MR. JESSE COLLINGSIs that a joke?
§ MR. LEIF JONESNo, it was dead earnest. He regretted that the right hon. Gentleman was always picturing the ideal public-house, existing apparently far away in the reminiscences of his boyhood—the public-house where the father took his meal while the mother was near, and the children were playing around.
§ MR. JESSE COLLINGSHear hear!
§ MR. LEIF JONESBut that was not a picture of the public-house in the present day, and therefore, it was that the men who knew what public-houses were, gave their support to the Government in their action on this clause. He had been in communication with the constituents of the right hon. Gentleman, with his own constituents, and with the constituents of oilier hon. Members. He had a telegram from the ex-Chairman of the right hon. Gentleman's own Liberal Unionist Association, who was Chairman of a meeting summoned under the auspices of the Birmingham Citizens' Committee, supporting the Licensing Bill, of which the Bishop of Birmingham was President, and which ranked among its members representatives of every denomination and every political Party, and that telegram expressed astonishment and regret at the action of the right hon. Gentleman in putting down an Amendment to reject this clause.
§ MR. JESSE COLLINGSLet me correct my hon. friend. The telegram which I received yesterday had nothing to do with this clause. It referred to my action on the Licensing Bill.
§ MR. LEIF JONESI have also a telegram.
§ MR. JESSE COLLINGSI know nothing of your telegram.
§ MR. LEIF JONESsaid the right hon. Gentleman apparently receives very strange telegrams. Here was the telegram which he had received. [The hon. Member read the telegram.]
§ MR. JESSE COLLINGSI spoke of my own telegram; I only wanted to correct that.
§ MR. LEIF JONESsaid he failed to see why, when he was speaking of a telegram which he had himself received, the right hon. Gentleman should continue to correct him about a telegram which had been sent to him. The right hon. Gentleman had spoken of the legislative machine, and of how this clause was supported by faddists, fanatics, and foolish persons. He had also spoken of this legislation as unwise legislation. The right hon. Gentleman forgot where the clause came from. This was one of the Lords' Amendments. He was bound to say that the right hon. Gentleman the Under-Secretary had spoken a little more respectfully of legislation emanating from such a source than he was disposed to do. He himself was at liberty to criticise their action. He did not find himself able to use the language adopted by his right hon. friend when he said he was grateful to the House of Lords for this clause. He could not express any gratitude to the House of Lords in any action they might take on the temperance question. The Lords could never undo the mischief they had done in the past. They had deliberately, of their own action, prolonged what the Leader of the Opposition called "the never ending tragedy of this country."
§ * MR. SPEAKERThis has nothing to do with the measure under discussion.
§ MR. LEIF JONESapologised for having been carried away by his strong feeling on this matter. He was endeavouring to explain the reason why he could not join in expressing gratitude to the House of Lords because out of a whole family they had spared this one child. Personally he was a little sorry 1646 that the right, hon. Gentleman had thought it necessary to put down some Amendments to the clause, because it might be said that they were less keen upon temperance reform than the Lords themselves.
§ MR. JESSE COLLINGSMy Amendment is to delete the whole clause.
§ MR. LEIF JONESsaid he was referring to some other Amendments of the right hon. Gentleman. The hon. Member for Yarmouth had said that the House of Lords had put in this clause without consideration. He did not think there was any justification for that statement. The Amendment had been on the Paper a good many days, and the Lords had passed it only after due consideration. He should like to meet the argument of the mover of the present Amendment, in which he said that he desired to elevate the public-houses of the country. He would ask him what was the matter with the public-houses. Why did they want elevating? Why did he wish them to raise the position of the public-house? Were they to take it from him that there was anything wrong with them? It was the first time he had heard the admission made from that quarter; but, taking it so, he thought the hon. Member probably shared the idyllic view of the public-house put forward by the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Bordesley.
§ MR. JESSE COLLINGSNothing of the kind. I hope you will allow me to correct such a mis-statement as that. I never spoke about the idyllic public-house. What I said was that to see a family in the position I have described, the man and his wife and his child, was an idyllic domestic scene.
§ MR. LEIF JONESsaid he had no wish to misrepresent the right hon. Gentleman and he did not profess to be quoting him, but he thought the word "idyllic" was a fair description of the picture the right hon. Gentleman had presented. But he took it that he too admitted there was need for elevating the public-house. If the children went in at present in great numbers, they had not succeeded in elevating them. 1647 Even if their going in were going to elevate the public-houses it caused degeneration and infinite mischief among the children, for he said confidently that the nation was not prepared to go on sacrificing children for the sake of the public-houses, and the country as a whole was grateful to the Government for this clause.
§ MR. BERTRAM (Hertfordshire, Hitchin), who was indistinctly heard, said that no discussion of any sort or description had taken place on this matter in another place, and he thought it ought to receive full discussion somewhere and in the House of Commons if possible. He had taken the trouble to refer to the Licensing Bill, and the clause relating to the admission of children into public-houses in the Bill as introduced was not this clause. The original clause was never discussed at all and, under the process of closure by compartments, Government Amendments completely recasting and altering the clause and enormously extending its scope were introduced. That was the clause which was now before them, and it was because of the great difference between these two forms of clause that he suggested that the matter was one which ought to be discussed, seeing that the Under-Secretary himself had held within the past few minutes two entirely different views regarding it. The hon. Member whose Amendment was before the House had said a great many things with which he was not prepared to agree, but he certainly felt, with a great amount of regret, that the popularity of this clause in the Blouse was due less to a feeling for the children than to a feeling against the publican. He said that in view of the actual state of the law as it at present was. In the first place there was upon the Statute-book the Sale of Intoxicating Liquor to Children Act of 1901. That introduced a very strong safeguard for the children. Hon. Members on that side of the House, though they were always ready to penalise the publican never appeared willing to take any steps to penalise the parent who took his child into this unhallowed atmosphere. There was no provision as there was in the original clause of the Government's Licensing Bill, to safeguard the publican. All 1648 these safeguards had been removed. The original clause was perfectly fair to the publican and carried out all the purposes and wishes of hon. Members on that side; but the amended clause which went through that House, whether after consultation with the hon. Member for Appleby and his friends he did not know, went through without a word of discussion. It was because the penalisation of the publican under this clause was so severe, and he thought so unreasonable, that, though he disagreed with a great deal of what had fallen from hon. Members opposite, he intended to support the Amendment.
§ MR. MACLEANsaid that if the clause had no discussion in another place it was not for want of opportunity at any rate. One could only assume that lack of discussion arose from general agreement among the Members of that Assembly as regarded the principles and details of the measure. He would like to draw the attention of the House to what his hon. friend had said as to the frequenting of public-houses by children. The hon. Member had given instances of what happened in London and great cities. He would like to give an instance of what happened in a much smaller area. In a town with which he was acquainted there were 20,000 inhabitants and fourteen public-houses, and in August, 1907, long before the Licensing Bill was introduced, some friends of his made a census of what took place between the hours of 8.30 and 11 on a Saturday night. He knew the circumstances under which the census was taken, and could vouch for the responsibility and the accuracy of those who took it. In these fourteen houses 5,775 persons entered, of whom 3,741 were men, 1,495 women, and 539—about 10 per cent.—children. In one house alone 278 persons entered, of whom twenty-seven only were men, 123 were women, and fifty-six were children. Children did frequent public-houses in very large numbers, and they were mostly just under the age of sixteen. Was that desirable or was it not? He thought there was a general agreement that it was undesirable. A great deal had been said about the penalisation of the publican. Through the length and the breadth of the country there was a very 1649 large measure of agreement amongst the publicans themselves that it was undesirable, and they would be very willing to see children kept out of the bars of their houses. He knew instances where resolutions to that effect had been passed, and there was a very large measure of support for this particular proposition of the Licensing Bill from the licensing trade itself. One heard much about the liberty of the subject. After all they had to consider two things. The adult could look after himself, but the liberty of the child was also a matter for their serious consideration. He thought the House of Commons when it agreed, as he had no doubt it would, with this Amendment of the Lords, would be taking a long and a proper step towards the protection of the children of this country.
§ MR. MITCHELL-THOMSON (Lanarkshire, N.W.)said the hon. Member for Appleby had given a modified blessing to the action of another place in inserting this clause in the Bill. He agreed to a certain extent with the hon. Member for Hitchin, and he should agree with him still further if they had to treat this clause as if it stood alone. But they had to look at it as it would appear with the addition of the Government Amendments. As the clause stood he thought it undoubtedly would have created, in many instances, a great deal of hardship, and by the Amendments a large amount of that hardship would be mitigated. As to the necessity for recognising that a great deal of evil and suffering was entailed by the present system, which allowed the admission of children to public-houses, he really thought there could not be two opinons. The Under-Secretary had quoted from the Report of the Chief Constable. He knew few documents, which had ever been presented to the House, which were really more terrible indictments of a great deal of our modern civilisation. He appealed to the Government very sincerely and from the bottom of his heart to consider very carefully whether it was wise to rush in in too headlong a manner. He had listened to the Under-Secretary with great care and attention to see if he would supplement 1650 what appeared in the Report of the Chief Constable. No supplementary evidence was forthcoming at all. Manchester and Birmingham had been quoted but those were great urban centres, and he noticed that his hon. friend the Member for one of the divisions of Kent had an Amendment on the Paper suggesting that this principle should to first adopted. When that Amendment came on he hoped the Government would be able to give them some figures with regard to the alleged existence of this evil in the country districts, where it was obvious that this clause would undoubtedly work a considerable amount of inconvenience and hardship. It had always been with the greatest difficulty and feeling of regret that he ventured to differ from his right hon. friend the Member for Bordesley Division. He yielded to no one in his love for liberty. The right hon. Gentleman said it was only small minorities who were guilty of wrong-doing. As a matter of fact, all legislation was directed against small minorities.
§ SIR F. BANBURYBut majorities do wrong, sometimes.
§ MR. MITCHELL-THOMSONsaid he very much doubted whether, as the clause stood, it would have the effect anticipated. He was afraid it would be liable to evasion. The whole point of the clause lay in the definition of what a bar was. The right hon. Gentleman said the Bill provided the definition that a bar was to mean an open drinking bar, but he did not think that was a good definition. The definition given in the Child Messenger Act had been adopted, which defined bar as a place used only for the sale and consumption of intoxicating liquor. Therefore, a place used for sale alone would not be interfered with, and it would be equally true that a place used for consumption only would be in the same position. If they could divorce sale from sale and consumption it would not affect places in which consumption alone took place, and any publican who wanted to drive a coach and four through this clause only needed to let the sale take place in one room, and the consumption in another.
§ * MR. HERBERT SAMUELBut there cannot be consumption without a gale unless the publican gives his liquor away.
§ MR. MITCHELL-THOMSONasked how the Bill would apply to another department where consumption took place and not sale. He thought there was a real danger here, and he hoped when the subsequent Amendment came up for consideration the right hon. Gentleman would direct his attention to the points he had raised, namely, the question of country areas, and the definition clause.
§ MR. REES (Montgomery Boroughs)said that the Under-Secretary had made a very good case, as he invariably did, and he dwelt upon the additional weight this clause would gather on account of its place or origin. He had been followed by the hon. Member for Appleby, without whose blessing no Ministerial pronouncement on temperance was complete. But in spite of those speeches he submitted there was some cause for looking into the effect of this clause instead of swallowing it whole, which he was not prepared to do like the admirers of the Upper House who had previously addressed them. This was really a very stiff and strong clause in its drafting. For instance, it laid down that the holder of a licence should not allow a child to be at any time in the bar of his licensed premises. The term "bar" had been defined in the Bill. A bar was no small part of a public-house, and a great many public-houses were all bar with a little bit behind. Although the right hon. Gentleman had found much comfort in the definition of a bar he submitted that in the working of this section great difficulty would be found. Take the case of a crowd where there were many mothers assembled with children. It was very easy to criticise the women for taking their children with them on such occasions, but mothers had not always got anybody to leave the children with. Assume, for example, Lord Mayor's Day, when suddenly there might be a pressure in the crowd and perhaps a child for safety might be passed over the heads of the crowd into an adjacent public-house and placed in the bar. Supposing the 1652 proprietor of that public-house shut his door against that child. He would at once be stigmatised as a man unfit to conduct a public-house, and if he admitted the child he would be doing something; obnoxious to this section. It was all very well to say that that was not the intention, but what had intention to do with the matter? Judicial officers had to administer the law, and that was absolutely the interpretation of the statute. Surely difficulties in drafting likely to lead to doubt were the very things a legislative assembly ought to consider far more than eloquent perorations. Take another case. Take, for example, a country station, where a father was passing from one place to another and could only see his family on the station as he changed his train. That was an extremely common occurrence. The man's family was brought to the station, and he did not know of any place, particularly on country stations, where the family could be received except in the railway bar. [An HON. MEMBER: There is the waiting room.] That man would be liable under the words of this statute, and therefore this proviso would defeat its own object. The clause did not lay down that the offence must be intentional, but it said boldly and unconditionally that the holder of a licence should not allow the child to be in the bar of licensed premises. He was as anxious as the Members of the House of Lords that children should be protected, but he submitted that this was not the way to protect them. The greatest hardship might be done and it was impossible in this measure dealing with temperance to deal with every conceivable case. He appealed to the House to amend this section and make it such as magistrates could administer without causing hardship to innocent persons. In country places and rural districts it was often the case that with the exception of licensed premises there was hardly any other place where a man could take his family. The cases he had cited were of actual occurrence, and the House should remember in making laws they had to take into account hard cases and the actual meaning of the statute. They had not to consider intention: that was a matter of absolute indifference to the Judiciary who would administer the law.
§ * MR. STUART WORTLEYsaid he understood that the effect of this Amendment would be to destroy the clause, and he was not prepared to give a vote to that effect. None of them disagreed with the doctrine that children ought to be kept out of the gin houses, but this clause went a good deal further than the gin house, and it left out many distinctions which ought to have been included and provided for. Those defects afforded ample indications that the subject had not been fully thought out by those who had asked the House to legislate on the subject. The hon. Member for Westmoreland and members of societies to promote temperance had long had their minds concentrated on this subject, and they imagined that everybody else was in the same position, and ready to carry out legislation containing the fullest possible details at the smallest possible notice. The small amount of discussion which this subject had received in the House of Lords, and the complete absence of discussion in the Commons, were evidence of the fact that the public did not understand well what this clause proposed to do. After all, they must remember the conditions of the agricultural labourer's life. It must be remembered that the village public-house was the only place where a man could find light, warmth, and company, and it ought not to be made a dismal place where he could do nothing but sit and drink until, being incapable, he could not be allowed to remain longer. Having enumerated all these imperfections in the clause he must say that he had to thank the right hon. Gentleman for some savings and exemptions. On behalf of the railway companies he thanked him for having delivered them from the duty and obligation which would have been absolutely intolerable, of asking their officials and police to interfere with the travelling public who sought to go into their refreshment rooms. Would not the Government even now conciliate some of the opposition to this clause by making some further distinctions? Could they not discriminate between the really flagrant case of the purely urban houses, which ministered to nothing except the mere desire for drink, and the case of rural houses which fulfilled many other 1654 functions? There was also the case of a wife who wished to go into the public-house to get her husband out of it. Supposing she could not go there unless she left her child at home, would not the effect be that she would not go there at all?
§ SIR J. JARDINE (Roxburghshire)said he had listened with great interest to the debate, and he intervened to deal with some aspects of rural life in Scotland which had not been noticed. He expressed disagreement with the hon. Member for the Montgomery Boroughs in regard to the possibility, under the penal clause, of the conviction of a publican who in time of emergency helped a woman who had a crying baby, or who gave shelter to a neighbour whose house was being burned down. He thought the common law maxims would cover cases of that kind. No magistrate would ever convict if such a case were brought before him, nor would any policeman care to make a charge against a publican in the circumstances indicated. He thought the House need not be afraid of any harsh treatment of humane publicans who acted from necessity, which was the highest of all motives. In the county which he had the honour to represent there were parishes where a farm labourer had no opportunity of going to a bar to eat his dinner with the solace of drink. Like a decent man he went home to his wife and family, or his wife and family came to the field with his dinner. He was told that in England there were thousands of cases where public-houses were used for family reunions. That was a point which had been laboured by the right hon. Gentleman opposite. He would ask whether that was really the custom in the rural districts of England. If they looked at the literature of the country for centuries, he thought he might say without fear of contradiction they would not find that any great poet or tragedian had regarded the tied-house as the scene of family reunions. In some book they might find a reference to the village public-house as a place where the writer laid stress on the fact that the beer was heavy and the society that of poachers, but it was not described as a place where people would meet their children. They 1655 all knew the touching line in Gray's "Elegy" of the children running to lisp their sire's return, but the poet did not lay the scene of that meeting in the public-house. Neither did Robert Burns in his great poem, "The Cottar's Saturday Night," describe the domestic joy of the family gathering as taking place in a public-house. If they looked into the Bacchanalian literature of the nation, they would find that the scenes depicted were such as would deter parents from wishing that their children should have any knowledge of what went on in drinking places. He thought, therefore, he was justified in saying that for generations it had not been the custom of the people to use public-houses for domestic reunions. He was pleased that certain alterations were being made in the clause which would commend themselves generally. Knowing the feeling of rural Scotland, he welcomed the clause. This Bill was part of a great scheme for improving the condition of the people, and for that reason he hoped the clause now before the House would be passed.
§ MR. HUNT (Shropshire, Ludlow)said that the hon. Member who had just spoken did not seem to appreciate that a working man and his wife out for a walk with their family could not take their children into a public-house even to give them a cup of tea. There were a great many public-houses where there was no room except those "mainly used for serving drink." That was really a serious objection to the clause, which would take away a poor man's freedom altogether, even to give his child a cup of tea. He suggested the substitution of the words "entirely used" instead of "mainly used," which he thought would meet the objection of a considerable number of people. In his part of the world it would be very hard in the case of children under fourteen years of age. The hon. Member opposite rather twitted those on that side of the House that the country public-houses were not better than they were. If that were so, one of the chief reasons was because the rabid teetotalers had always done their best to make them bad. They would not allow any improvement to be made or to allow any amusement or games to be enjoyed in them. He 1656 hoped that the Home Secretary would consider the question of altering those words.
§ * MR. HAMAR GREENWOOD (York)said he wished to protest against the unworthy suggestion of the hon. Member for Hitchin, that those who supported this clause were inspired with a desire to penalise the publican and had no consideration whatever for the tens of thousands of tender children under fourteen years of age, who would, unless this clause passed, be condemned to an environment from which it would be impossible for them to emerge physically and morally sound. He supported this clause because he had seen clauses far more drastic passed into law in the Dominion of Canada and in all the Northern States of the United States of America. In some of the self-governing Colonies of the Empire the age-limit had been raised to as high as twenty-one years. [OPPOSITION cries of "Oh!"] He knew that that would not meet with the approval of some hon. Gentlemen opposite, but the fact remained that in no part of the English-speaking world in which a law had been passed fixing a prohibitory age for children entering bars had it ever been repealed. The whole tendency of legislation in the English-speaking world had been in fact to increase the age-limit; and in many cases the age had been fixed at twenty-one. He was amazed that the hon. Member for Great Yarmouth, who was lucky enough to have been born in New Zealand, the most temperate State in all His Majesty's dominions, should have dared to move the rejection of a clause in this Parliament which he would have been afraid to move in his own native Dominion. He would vote for the rejection of this Amendment because its acceptance would condemn those unfortunate youngsters of the slums in our great cities to influences and environments from which few of them could ever emerge clean-minded young men and young women. He would vote for the clause because it had been successful throughout the English-speaking world, where all classes were united in making the prohibitory age higher and higher, and in no part of which had 1657 it ever been seriously proposed to reduce the age-limit.
§ MR. CARLILE (Hertfordshire, St. Albans)said that he was in a dilemma. He could not vote for the clause as it stood, and certainly he could not vote against it. One felt that this clause had been superficially thought out—that it had been insufficiently considered in another place. They knew that it had not been thoroughly debated in the House of Commons when it was included in the Licensing Bill. He would mention one point only which made him hesitate to vote either for or against the clause. Take the case of a working man with two daughters, one ten years of age and the other sixteen years of age. He asked himself which of these two girls was it best for a working man to send to a public-house to obtain the liquor which he wanted? Clearly, that working man dared not send his sixteen year old daughter. [Cries of "Why?"] He could not, if he held that the surroundings of the public-house were undesirable; and his wife would not permit it. But he might think that his child of ten years of age might be safely sent. That was one dilemma that had not been provided for in the clause; and that showed that the clause had been superficially drafted and discussed. He believed that a better definition could have been arrived at if more consideration had been given to the clause in both Houses.
§ SIR F. BANBURYsaid he understood that his hon. friend was going to withrdaw his Amendment, but he objected to that, because, after the speech of the hon. Member for York, this was an attempt to bring in a clause by which afterwards the age-limit would be increased to twenty-one years.
§ * MR. HAMAR GREENWOODsaid that that was a very serious accusation to make. What he had done in his speech was to quote examples of what had been done in other English-speaking States. He said that in some of these States the age-limit had been raised to twenty-one years; but he did not say that the Government intended to raise the age-limit to twenty-one 1658 years, or that the Government ought to be urged to raise the age-limit to twenty-one years.
§ SIR F. BANBURYsaid that what he intended to say was that the hon. Member believed that the age-limit should be raised to twenty-one years. Unless the hon. Member did wish that, he did not see the use of his argument. He himself believed that England was as sober as any of the other English-speaking countries to which the hon. Member had referred, without all these legislative enactments to which the hon. Member attached so much importance. His belief was that the clause would not tend to increase but to discourage sobriety. There was a strong feeling in the country that all these attempts to dictate to the people in matters of purely domestic economy were resented, and would continue to be resented. He was sorry that his hon. friend was not going to divide, because he believed that the children were thoroughly protected by the Child Messenger Act, to which allusion had been made. He would point out that all hon. Members opposite who had made speeches in favour of this clause were entirely obsessed with the idea that a gin-palace was objectionable. But it must not be supposed that the ordinary public-house in a big town was the same as a country public-house. The hon. Member for Appleby thought that they ought not to oppose this clause because it had come from the House of Lords. He himself did not believe that any human institution was incapable of making an error. Misled as they were, by the hurry of the right hon. Gentleman and his friends during the last few days, the House of Lords had, in his opinion, been induced to pass this clause without due reflection, and he hoped that the Government would so amend it as to make it consonant with what was indicated by the Amendment.
§ Amendment to the Lords' Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
§ MR. FELL moved to insert words providing that the holder of the 1659 licence of any licensed premises should not allow a child "unless in the charge of a parent, or adult relative, or person acting in the place of a parent," to be at any time in the bar of the licensed premises except during the hours of closing. If the words which he proposed were inserted, he thought it would make the clause satisfactory. He did not wish to travel over the ground of discussion on the first subsection, but he might say that it was obvious that there was a great distinction between the case of children who went into a public-house with their parents for the purpose of obtaining refreshment and those who entered under other circumstances. The distinction was a very great one, and he hoped the suggestion he made would be agreed to. They had had a terrible picture drawn of children being taken into public-house bars by then parents or persons in whose charge they were, but these children were, in almost all cases, in arms or of very tender age, and were not the children at whom this clause pointed in any degree whatever. The terrible scenes caused by mothers taking their children to the public-house and giving them little drops of drink ought to be stopped, and were dealt with by another clause. This clause however, referred to the case of older children who were brought there by their father or mother without the slightest harm resulting. As to the other terrible evil, they must educate the parents to see the harm which was done by a mother taking her child into a public-house or leaving it in a miserable room where it might be burned alive. He did not say that there might not be cases where the mother might remain at home rather than go out to the public-house and leave the child at home, but until better conditions and a better education were obtained for them he was afraid that these evils would not be cured by any such legislation as now proposed. There was, moreover, the case of the mother going to the public-house to fetch the dinner beer. But there were respectable people who took their children into public-houses and refreshment-rooms perfectly honestly and rightly for the purpose of obtaining refreshment, and he thought it would be a great hardship if they were not allowed to do so. He had taken his 1660 own boy of ten or twelve, when out cycling, into bars frequently, and they had had their refreshment. Now apparently, however, that was to be stopped. The other point, as to the difficulty about the age of the children, he considered almost insuperable. There was laughter when his hon. friend behind him suggested that it was rather more dangerous to send a girl over fourteen into a public-house than a girl under fourteen, but he entirely agreed with him, end he considered that to tell girls of fourteen that at that age they could go into public houses would be an invitation to do so. It opened up an immense danger, as they might go there out of bravado or in order to have the laugh of their friends who were under the age. There must be a certain line drawn, of course, but he could not help thinking that the age selected was most unfortunate.
§ * MR. SPEAKERcalled the hon. Member to order for irrelevancy and repetition
§ MR. FELLwas sorry he was repeating himself. What he meant to suggest by this Amendment, was that a parent might take children under fourteen into public-houses, without doing anything in contravention of the law. He considered that there would be great hardship created if fathers and mothers were not allowed to take their children into a public-house under the circumstances he mentioned, and the pictures which had been drawn of the evils resulting did not apply to this class of case. He begged to move.
§ SIR F. BANBURY, in seconding the Amendment, said that unless some provision of this sort were inserted in the clause great hardship would result to a large class of deserving people who were taking a holiday or going upon an excursion. They all knew perfectly well that in the vicinity of railway-stations—he was aware that railway bars were to be excepted from the clause—there were inns and hotels where people went and obtained the necessary refreshments if they went for a day at the seaside or in the country, especially in those places to which the railways ran 1661 cheap excursions. It would be impossible for all the people to obtain the refreshments they needed at the railway refreshment rooms. These were not large enough to admit a great number of people, and sometimes an excursion train took as many as 500 or 600 people. Unless the Amendment were accepted, children under fourteen would not be able to obtain the necessary refreshments. Of course, people could go to a teetotal A.B.C. shop, or something of hat description, and no doubt that would meet the views of the hon. Member for Appleby or the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Spen Valley, because they wanted to make it impossible for a man to enter a public-house. A man would not be able, to do so unless he left his child outside. If this Amendment were carried there was no reason to suppose that any great harm; would result to the children, whereas if it were not carried considerable inconvenience would be felt by many people who were enjoying the short leisure they sometimes had at their disposal. They had heard a good deal recently about the necessity of limiting the hours of labour in order to increase the leisure of the working classes, to whom this clause particularly applied, but if those classes when they had leisure were prevented from spending a few days at the seaside or in the country with their children it would be very undesirable. If a man took a packet of sandwiches with him, he could not, under this clause, go into an inn and eat them with his child and have a pint of beer. These were the days of bicycling, and many people went on excursions with their children. It was a healthy recreation, but it was difficult to carry things on a bicycle. If a father,
§ having his child with him, stopped at a wayside public-house, the child would have to wait outside while the grown-up person went inside. A more ridiculous piece of legislation could not be imagined, and, therefore, he had great pleasure in supporting the Amendment of his hon. friend, who would, he hoped, divide if the Government did not accept it.
§
Amendment proposed to the Lords' Amendment—
In line 2, after the word 'child,' to insert th words 'unless in the charge of a parent, or adult relative, or person acting in the place of a parent.'"—(Mr. Fell.)
§ Question proposed, "That those words be there inserted."
§ * MR. HERBERT SAMUELsaid the Government, of course, could not accept the Amendment, which would undo the whole purpose of the clause. The object of the Amendment was to allow children to be taken to any part of a public-house so long as they were accompanied by their parents, but the very mischief they wanted to aim at was that the children should not be taken into the public-house by their parents, and if this Amendment were adopted they might as well have no clause at all. The number of children who went into a public-house unaccompanied by parents was very small. They had had a long discussion on the subsection, and this was practically the same subject, and the Government could not accept the Amendment.
§ Question put.
§ The House divided:—Ayes, 17; Noes, 192. (Division List No. 456.)
1663| AYES. | ||
| Acland-Hood, Rt Hn. Sir Alex. F. | Courthope, G. Loyd | Thorne, William (West Ham) |
| Balcarres, Lord | Forster, Henry William | Valentia, Viscount |
| Bertram, Julius | Gretton, John | Warde, Col. C. E. (Kent, Mid) |
| Bowles, G. Stewart | Lupton, Arnold | |
| Cave, George | Nield, Herbert | TELLERS FOR THE AYES—Mr. Fell and Sir Frederick Banbury. |
| Cecil, Lord R. (Marylebone, E.) | Powell, Sir Francis Sharp | |
| Collings, Rt. Hn. J. (Birmingh'm | Staveley-Hill, Henry (Staff'sh. | |
| NOES. | ||
| Abraham, William (Rhondda) | Baker, Joseph A. (Finsbury, E.) | Barrie, H. T. (Londonderry, N.) |
| Allen, Charles P. (Stroud) | Barker, Sir John | Beale, W. P. |
| Armitage, R. | Barlow, Percy (Bedford) | Beck, A. Cecil |
| Armstrong, W. C. Heaton | Barnes, G. N. | Bell, Richard |
| Bellairs, Carlyon | Harmsworth, Cecil B. (Worc's.) | O'Brien, Patrick (Kilkenny) |
| Benn, W. (T'w'r Hamlets, S. Geo. | Hart-Davies, T. | O'Kelly, James (Rocsommon, N. |
| Bethell, Sir J. H. (Essex, Romf'rd | Harvey, A. G. C. (Rochdale) | Parker, James (Halifax) |
| Birrell, Rt. Hon. Augustine | Harvey, W. E. (Derbyshire, N. E. | Pickersgill, Edward Hare |
| Boland, John | Haslam, James (Derbyshire) | Pirie, Duncan V. |
| Bowerman, C. W. | Hazel, Dr. A. E. | Pollard, Dr. |
| Brace, William | Hedges, A. Paget | Ponsonby, Arthur A. W. H. |
| Bramsdon, T. A. | Henderson, Arthur (Durham) | Price, C. E. (Edinb'gh, Central) |
| Bright, J. A. | Henderson, J. M. (Aberdeen, W.) | Price, Sir Robert J. (Norfolk, E.) |
| Brodie, H. C. | Herbert, T. Arnold (Wycombe) | Rea, Russell (Gloucester) |
| Brunner, J. F. L. (Lancs., Leigh) | Higham, John Sharp | Rea, Walter Russell (Scarboro' |
| Bryce, J. Annan | Hobhouse, Charles E. H. | Rees, J. D. |
| Burt, Rt. Hon. Thomas | Hooper, A. G. | Rendall, Athelstan |
| Buxton, Rt. Hn. Sydney Charles | Horniman, Emslie John | Richards, T. F. (Wolverh'mpt'n |
| Byles, William Pollard | Houston, Robert Paterson | Ridsdale, E. A. |
| Cameron, Robert | Howard, Hon. Geoffrey | Roberts, Charles H. (Lincoln) |
| Carr-Gomm, H. W. | Hudson, Walter | Roberston, J. M. (Tyneside) |
| Channing, Sir Francis Allston | Hutton, Alfred Eddison | Robinson, S. |
| Cherry, Rt. Hon. R. R. | Illingworth, Percy H. | Robson, Sir William Snowdon |
| Cleland, J. W. | Jardine, Sir J. | Roch, Walter F. (Pembroke) |
| Clough, William | Johnson, John (Gateshead) | Rogers, F. E. Newman |
| Collins, Stephen (Lambeth) | Jones, Leif (Appleby) | Rowlands, J. |
| Corbett, C H (Sussex, E. Grinst'd | Jones, William (Carnarvonshire | Samuel, Rt. Hn. H. L. (Cleveland |
| Cotton, Sir H. J. S. | Jowett, F. W. | Scott, A. H. (Ashton under Lyne |
| Cowan, W. H. | Joyce, Michael | Seddon, J. |
| Craig, Herbert J. (Tynemouth) | Kearley, Sir Hudson E. | Seely, Colonel |
| Curran, Peter Francis | Kekewich, Sir George | Shackleton, David James |
| Dalziel, Sir James Henry | Kennaway, Rt. Hon. Sir John H. | Shipman, Dr. John G. |
| Davies, Timothy (Fulham) | Kincaid-Smith, Captain | Sinclair, Rt. Hon. John |
| Davies, Sir W. Howell (Bristol, S. | King, Alfred John (Knutsford) | Smeaton, Donald Mackenzie |
| Dewar, Arthur (Edinburgh, S.) | Laidlaw, Robert | Snowden, P. |
| Dobson, Thomas W. | Layland-Barrett, Sir Francis | Stanger, H. Y. |
| Duckworth, Sir James | Lehmann, R. C. | Stanley, Albert (Staffs, N. W.) |
| Duncan, C. (Barrow-in-Furness | Lever, A. Levy (Essex, Harwich | Stewart-Smith, D. (Kendal) |
| Edwards, Enoch (Hanley) | Lewis, John Herbert | Straus, B. S. (Mile End) |
| Erskine, David C. | Lyell, Charles Henry | Summerbell, T. |
| Esslemont, George Birnie | Macdonald, J. R. (Leicester) | Taylor, Theodore C. (Radcliffe) |
| Evans, Sir Samuel T. | Macdonald, J. M. (Falkirk B'ghs. | Thomas, Sir A. (Glamorgan, E.) |
| Everett, R. Lacey | Maclean, Donald | Thorne, G. R. (Wolverhampton) |
| Fenwick, Charles | Macnamara, Dr. Thomas J. | Trevelyan, Charles Philips |
| Ferens, T. R. | MacNeill, John Gordon Swift | Vivian, Henry |
| Fiennes, Hon. Eustace | MacVeagh, Jeremiah (Down, S. | Walsh, Stehpen |
| Fuller, John Michael F. | M'Crae, Sir George | Ward, John (Stoke, upon-Trent) |
| Gibb, James (Harrow) | M'Killop, W. | Wardle, George J. |
| Gill, H. A. | M'Laren, H. D. (Stafford, W.) | Waterlow, D. S. |
| Gladstone, Rt. Hn. Herbert John | M'Micking, Major G. | Wedgwood, Josiah C. |
| Glendinning, R. G. | Mallet, Charles E. | Whitbread, Howard |
| Glover, Thomas | Mansfield, H. Rendall (Lincoln) | White, J. Dundas (Dumbart'nsh. |
| Goddard, Sir Daniel Ford | Marks, G. Croydon (Launceston) | Whitehead, Rowland |
| Gooch, George Peabody (Bath) | Marnham, F. J. | Whitley, John Henry (Halifax) |
| Grant, Corrie | Massie, J. | Whittaker, Rt Hn. Sir Thomas P. |
| Greenwood, G. (Peterborough) | Middlebrook, William | Wiles, Thomas |
| Greenwood, Hamar (York) | Montagu, Hon. E. S. | Wilkie, Alexander |
| Grey, Rt. Hon. Sir Edward | Morse, L. L. | Wilson, Henry J. (York, W. R.) |
| Gulland, John W. | Murray, Capt. Hn. A. C. (Kincard. | Wilson, P. W. (St. Pancras, S.) |
| Gwynn, Stephen Lucius | Myer, Horatio | Wilson, W. T. (Westhoughton) |
| Hall, Frederick | Newnes, F. (Notts, Bassetlaw) | Winfrey, R. |
| Halpin, J. | Nicholson, Charles N. (Doncast'r | |
| Harcourt, Rt. Hn. L. (Rossendale | Norton, Capt. Cecil William | TELLERS FOR THE NOES—Mr. Joseph Pease and Master of Elibank. |
| Harcourt, Robert V. (Montrose) | Nuttall, Harry | |
| Hardy, George A. (Suffolk) | O'Brien, Kendal(Tipperary Mid |
§ *MR. WHITBREAD (Huntingdonshire, Huntingdon) moved at end of subsection (1) to add "or, for the purpose of fetching intoxicating liquor for consumption off the premises subject to the provisions of the Intoxicating Liquor (Sale to Children) Act, 1901." He said this small Amendment merely preserved 1664 the provisions of the existing law. It did not run counter to the main intention of the clause, nor to the intention of the Government. Therefore there was no reason why the right hon. Gentleman should not accept it. The Act of 1901, the Child Messenger Act, prohibited the sale of intoxicating liquor to children 1665 on any part of licensed premises. This clause went a little further, and prohibited the presence of children on licensed premises. In the Act of 1901 it was found necessary to introduce a qualification which was felt necessary in order to meet the legitimate demands of a large section of the population. That qualification allowed liquor, to be consumed off the premises, to be served to children in corked and sealed vessels. The provision in the present clause was that a child was not to be allowed in the bar of the premises. If all public-houses were like those in London and other large towns, where there was a separate department for the supply of liquor to be consumed off the premises, the difficulty which he desired to meet would not arise. But the definition of "bar" would cover the whole ground floor premises of the majority of the houses in the country. In the village inn there was no such provision as was found in a London public-house. There might be a small bar, but in a great majority of such premises it would be difficult to say of any part of the ground floor that it was not used for the sale or consumption of drink. In the case of those houses the Child Messenger Act would be over-ridden, and rendered inoperative. That was the case he endeavoured to meet. He did not think it was the intention of the Government to abrogate the Child Messenger Act. He did not say anything about the merits of that Act, but so long as it remained the law, it ought not to be over-ridden in this way. If it had been intended to repeal it, some opportunity for so doing would have been found in a clause of the Licensing Bill, or in the Children Bill, but no such opportunity was taken. Unless some qualification was introduced in this clause, certainly in a large number of houses, such as he had described, the Child Messenger Bill would be practically repealed. He was entirely in favour of keeping children out of the public-house, but he thought at the same time that in providing for that the House ought to be very careful not to abrogate, either by implication or incidentally, privileges which had been specifically enacted in response to a demand. He moved.
1666§ MR. MOONEY (Newry), in seconding the Amendment, said he was one of those who objected to legislation by reference, but he thought that one thing worse than that was a system of legislation by a clause like this. Although this clause did not specifically repeal the Child Messenger Act, it undoubtedly would do so unless some limitations were put in to prevent that result. The Child Messenger Act was passed in the year 1901, and it was one of those measures which, without the closure, was fully discussed, and strict safeguards were passed so that the child might not get at the liquor for which it was sent. The clause as it now stood, without putting in words such as those proposed, would undoubtedly repeal the whole of that Act. If it was the intention of the Government to repeal that Act, he did not think that this was the proper way to do it. If they left the clause in its present ambiguous form they would find the justices in one part of the country saying that it was the intention of the clause to repeal the Child Messenger Act, while the justices in another part of the country would say that was not the intention because it was not specifically stated. He did not believe that the Government intended to repeal the Child Messenger Act, but if they did not put in the words contained in the Amendment they might have these varying decisions by the justices.
§
Amendment proposed to the Lords Amendment—
In line 3, at the end, to insert the words 'or, for the purpose of fetching intoxicating liquor for consumption off the premises subject to the provisions of the Intoxicating Liquor (Sale to Children) Act, 1901.'"—(Mr. Whitbread.)
§ Question proposed, "That those words be there inserted."
§ * MR. HERBERT SAMUELsaid he did not understand what the hon. Gentleman who seconded the Amendment meant when he referred to the Child Messenger Act as being in effect repealed by this clause. That Act was a restrictive measure which limited provisions which previously existed, and imposed penalties on the holders of on-licences who supplied children with liquor except in sealed or corked 1667 vessels. If this clause were to repeal the Child Messenger Act, the result would simply be that a child could go into a public-house and get the liquor whether or not it was in a corked or sealed vessel. So far from this clause repealing the Act, however, it carried it further, and there could not be for a moment any question of putting it into the repeal schedule of the Bill, a course which would have precisely the opposite effect to that contemplated by the hon. Members themselves. The hon. Member he presumed meant that the clause ran counter to the intention of the Child Messenger Act, which was that liquor might be supplied to children so long as it was carried in corked and sealed vessels. It had been suggested in some important quarters that the Child Messenger Act ought, not to be repealed, but to be carried much, further, and that children should be prevented altogether from going to public-houses as messengers, whether the liquor was carried away in corked and sealed vessels or not. He confessed that there was much to be said for that proposal. But in this case they did not go so far as that. They said that wherever there was an off-sale department, or where there was a jug and bottle department, or whenever there was no consumption of liquor in the house, a child messenger might still be supplied. There was no possibility of a misunderstanding. The only prohibition was that a child might not go into a bar which was used for open drinking, or to any part of the premises which was exclusively or mainly used for the sale and consumption of liquor. There must be both a sale and consumption in that part of the licensed premises for the prohibition to operate.
§ MR. MOONEYasked the right hon. Gentleman to take the case of licensed premises which simply consisted of one long bar used for the sale of liquor across the counter for consumption on the premises. There was no definition given in the clause that such premises would be regarded as a place to which a child messenger could not go at any time.
§ * MR. HERBERT SAMUELsaid that was his point. Where there was the sale 1668 and consumption of liquor in any part of the house, then a child messenger could not go there, for liquor, whether it was in a corked and sealed vessel or not. But there was a very large number of places all over the country to which the child messenger might go. Further, when this Bill passed, he believed that publicans who desired to have places on their premises where a child messenger could be served would have jug and bottle departments where they had not got them already, and they would provide places for the purpose of serving children who might be sent to their premises. That might not be in itself a desirable thing, but certainly it would be much more desirable than that children should be served, as now, in some part of the premises where there was a sale and consumption of liquor. They certainly could not accept this Amendment, because they were anxious to keep the child from what they regarded as the contaminating surroundings of drinking places. There was a further reason against the Amendment, namely, that if they were to insert words of this kind they would be making a large loophole for evasion. Of course it would not apply to an infant in arms, but take the case of a child of larger growth. If a policeman found a child in the bar nothing would be easier than to say that it had come there as a messenger. Or if the mother was in the bar she might say that she had taken her child in there because she was going to send him home with a bottle of beer. So long as they had simple prohibition of the presence of the child, then they had an easily enforceable provision. Once they made an exemption of the messenger, then they would have evasion. Further, he believed that when once this law was passed it would become very well understood amongst the people, and they would not see children being sent to the drinking bars in future, so that in time people would forget that there was any statutory prohibition at all. But if they put in words of the character proposed, they would introduce a certain element of confusion, and they would spoil the simplicity of the law. As there was no great necessity for any charge, he hoped that the House would not accept the Amendment.
§ MR. CAVE (Surrey, Kingston)said he would be sorry to support any Amendment which would minimise the protection properly given to children. But he thought that they ought to have regard to the general convenience, and give that protection with a certain amount of common sense. It seemed to him that in refusing this Amendment the Government were going rather beyond that rule. It was true that they were not in terms proposing to repeal the Child Messenger Act, but they were repealing a considerable exception in that Act which was inserted by Parliament when that measure was passed, so far as regarded bars and other places coming within the denomination of bars. They all knew that there were places in the country where there was but one room in the public-house. It was a room with a bar at one end and with seats perhaps in the rest of the space. It was a room where the whole of the business of the house was done, whether is was an on or off sale, and the effect of this clause without the Amendment would be that no child under fourteen could be sent there for the liquor which his father consumed. He thought that was an unnecessary rule and that this exception ought to be allowed. The right hon. Gentleman said that the clause with this Amendment would be liable to evasion. He did not think that there was any real risk of that kind. The right hon. Gentleman had said that if the child were seen in the bar it might be replied that it was there as a messenger, but it would be quite easy to test whether that statement was true or not. In order to make a defence the parent must himself go and say that he had sent the child for the purpose of obtaining liquor for his own consumption. He would have to prove his case up to the hilt, and if there was the least suspicion of evasion he was quite sure that the evidence would be very carefully tested and the person would not escape unless he had a real and genuine defence. What evidence was there of any harm which would be caused by this Amendment? What evidence was there that the children who would be sent as messengers to bars within the meaning of this clause had been found to consume drink upon the premises or to abuse the privileges of the Act?
§ * MR. HERBERT SAMUELIt is not suggested.
§ MR. CAVEasked why, if no evil was suggested, this Amendment was not accepted? Children who went to these places to obtain liquor in corked and sealed vessels did, in fact, bring the liquor away, and no harm was done to them. Why should not the liberty given by Parliament in 1901 be continued in the present day? He did not think that a clause which admittedly affected the convenience of a large number of people ought to be insisted upon unless some evil existed which would otherwise be continued. He hoped that the matter would be reconsidered, and that the Amendment would be ultimately accepted. They ought to compare this clause with the clause in the original Bill. In the original Bill the clause was not of universal application. At certain times the justices thought it necessary to apply it, but it was extremely likely that in country places the justices, where there was only one room in the house, would feel that it was inconvenient to apply the clause, and also unnecessary unless a real evil existed. In that respect this Bill was different. This Bill was universal—there was no exception even in the case of a public-house such as he had suggested. In resisting this Amendment the Government were going beyond what were the real needs of the case. He certainly felt bound to vote for the hon. Member's Amendment.
§ THE SOLICITOR-GENERAL (Sir S. EVANS,) Glamorganshire, Mid.said the principle underlying the clause was that a bar was not a desirable place for a child under fourteen. If he was right in saying that that was the foundation of the clause, then this Amendment would run counter to that principle. The clause did not prevent the child messenger from going to the public-house if such a child was not brought under the contaminating influences of the bar. If a child should not be in the bar whilst its parent was drinking there, because of its contaminating influence, then surely it was an equally bad place to which to send a child messenger for liquor. Hon. Members knew probably 1671 that the provision of the Child Messenger Act had been considerably weakened by the decision of the Courts, that all the publican had to do was to prove that he was either manager or licensee, and that he had given orders to his servants and to everybody in the house that they were not to supply children. If the publican proved that, and that was most easy of proof, for his servant would probably corroborate his employer's statement, then the Courts had decided that the servants in that house could supply beer or liquor in bottles which were not corked and sealed at all within the meaning of the Act of Parliament. In that way the provision of the Child Messenger Act had been weakened very much, and if they accepted this Amendment he thought that it would lead to possible evasion of the Act. It was true, no doubt, that some inconvenience might be caused to parents if they were prevented from sending their children to the public-house to obtain dinner or supper beer, but as against that they must put the undoubted evil arising to the child from being in a place which was used mainly as a drinking place. It was not too much in the interests of the children to ask that those who kept public-houses, if they desired to supply child messengers in accordance with the Act of 1901, should so arrange their house that a place in or about the premises should be arranged so that the child need not go into the bar at all. On those grounds the Government found it impossible to assent to the Amendment, and must support the clause as it came down from another place.
§ MR. GRETTON (Rutland)did not think the case was quite as simple as the hon. and learned Gentleman represented it to be. He had not taken account of the fact that to make any alteration in his premises he had to obtain the consent of the local justices.
§ SIR S. EVANSI assume the local justices would not dream of refusing permission to alter the premises so as to prevent the necessity of the children going to the bar.
§ MR. GRETTONsaid the presumption of the hon. and learned Gentleman was 1672 going a very long way, and, putting it at the very lowest, had not been justified by experience of the administration of local justices. They all knew the composition of some benches, and how usual it was in some districts that they represented the extreme opinions of such as desired to degrade public houses to the lowest possible level, and to prevent any kind of facility, however desirable, for the distribution of alcoholic drink.
§ MR. LEIF JONESCan the hon. Member name any bench to which that description applies?
§ MR. GRETTONsaid he did not want to enter into a long controversy on the matter, but he was quite sure the hon. Member for Westmoreland could name as many benches as he could, and perhaps more, who took those views.
§ MR. LEIF JONESI think I could, but I cannot name one. I hear the charge freely made, but I have never heard an instance given of a bench to which a description of that kind properly applies.
§ MR. GRETTONsaid he was not prepared to give the hon. Member a list now, but if he wished for a list of benches of that kind he was quite prepared to give it to him privately, and to satisfy him of some flagrant cases where action of this kind had been taken.
§ MR. LEIF JONESI shall be very glad to receive it.
§ MR. GRETTONsaid the Solicitor-General seemed to think that under no circumstances should any child under the age of fourteen be admitted, even for the purpose of fetching alcoholic liquor in a sealed vessel, into an open drinking bar.
§ SIR S. EVANSI said that no Member of this House, whatever Party he belonged to, would like to send a child under fourteen to such a place.
§ MR. GRETTONthought the hon. and learned Gentleman was making a very 1673 large assumption. In the first place, they came to the great difficulty as to what was an open drinking bar, and what took place in an open drinking bar which made that place, under all circumstances, on all occasions, and in every instance, a case for the prohibition of any child under the age of fourteen. That had not been explained, and he thought, at any rate, the main argument upon which this clause was based should be put absolutely clearly and distinctly before the House. It should be remembered that these drinking bars were very much what local justices had made them. The powers of the local justices had been very great in the past, and had been exercised very freely and in many different directions according to the ideas of policy prevailing on the local benches. In many cases the local justices had insisted that every possible partition or division in licensed premises should be done away with, and that the whole premises should be one open drinking bar. On what ground had they insisted on that, if the open drinking bar was the one case which those who advocated temperance reform fixed upon as that most desirable to do away with—that one form of licensed premises from which it was most desirable
§ to keep the child? That question, he thought, should be answered, and he was afraid it was a difficult one to answer for those who were supporting the clause. He was not opposing the clause, not because he agreed with it, but because he believed both Houses desired to make some restrictions in this direction. The only object he had was that those restrictions should be of the least possible inconvenience to the public who desired legitimately and reasonably to use licensed premises, and the penalties to be inflicted should be applied with justice and equity to the person who held the licence. He thought, at any rate, unless some provision was made in connection with the Amendment to enable the child messenger to be sent to fetch beer or spirits for the parents' dinner or supper under reasonable conditions, those facilities should be afforded, and though he did not think the Amendment was in many respects an ideal Amendment, in the absence of anything better he should certainly vote for it.
§ Question put.
§ The House divided:—Ayes, 19; Noes, 173. (Division List No. 457.)
1675| AYES. | ||
| Acland-Hood,Rt.Hn.Sir Alex. F. | Courthope, G. Loyd | Powell, Sir Francis Sharp |
| Balcarres, Lord | Fell, Arthur | Rawlinson, John Frederick Peel |
| Baldwin, Stanley | Forster, Henry William | Warde, Col. C. E. (Kint, Mid) |
| Banbury, Sir Frederick George | Gretton, John | |
| Banner, John S. Harmood- | Hardy, Laurence (Kent, Ashford | TELLERS FOR THE AYES—Mr. Whitbread and Mr. Cave. |
| Bertram, Julius | Helmsley, Viscount | |
| Coates, Major E. F. (Lewisham) | Kennaway, Rt. Hon. Sir John H. | |
| Collings, Rt. Hn. J. (Birmingh'm) | Mooney, J. J. | |
| NOES. | ||
| Abraham, William (Cork, N. E.) | Bowerman, C. W. | Cotton, Sir H. J. S. |
| Abraham, William (Rhondda) | Brace, William | Cowan, W. H. |
| Allen, Charles P. (Stroud) | Bramsdon, T. A. | Crooks, William |
| Armitage, R. | Bright, J. A. | Crosfield, A. H. |
| Armstrong, W. C. Heaton | Brunner, J. F. L. (Lancs., Leigh) | Curran, Peter Francis |
| Baker, Joseph A. (Finsbury, E.) | Bryce, J. Annan | Dalziel, Sir James Henry |
| Barker, Sir John | Burns, Rt. Hon. John | Davies, Sir W. Howell (Bristol, S. |
| Barlow, Percy (Bedford) | Burt, Rt. Hon. Thomas | Dewar, Arthur (Edinburgh, S.) |
| Barnes, G. N. | Buxton, Rt. Hn. Sydney Charles | Dobson, Thomas W. |
| Barrie, H. T. (Londonderry, N.) | Byles, William Pollard | Duckworth, Sir James |
| Beale, W. P. | Cameron, Robert | Duncan, C. (Barrow-in-Furness) |
| Beck, A. Cecil | Carr-Gomm, H. W. | Edwards, Enoch (Hanley) |
| Bell, Richard | Channing, Sir Francis Allston | Erskine, David C. |
| Bellairs, Carlyon | Cherry, Rt. Hon. R. R. | Esslemont, George Birnie |
| Benn, W. (T'w'r Hamlets, S. Geo. | Cleland, J. W. | Evans, Sir Samuel T. |
| Bennett, E. N. | Clough, William | Everett, R. Lacey |
| Birrell, Rt. Hon. Augustine | Collins, Stephen (Lambeth) | Fenwick, Charles |
| Boland, John | Corbett, C. H. (Sussex, E. Grinst'd | Ferens, T. R. |
| Fiennes, Hon. Eustace | Lehmann, R. C. | Robinson, S. |
| Fuller, John Michael F. | Lever, A. Levy (Essex, Harwich) | Robson, Sir William Snowdon |
| Gibb, James (Harrow) | Lyell, Charles Henry | Roch, Walter F. (Pembroke) |
| Gill, A. H. | Macdonald, J. R. (Leicester) | Rogers, F. E. Newman |
| Glendinning, R. G. | Macdonald, J. M. (Falkirk B'ghs. | Rowlands, J. |
| Gooch, George Peabody (Bath) | Maclean, Donald | Samuel, Rt. Hn. H. L. (Cleveland) |
| Grant, Corrie | Macnamara, Dr. Thomas T. | Scott, A. H. (Ashton-under-Lyne |
| Greenwood, G. (Peterborough) | MacVeagh, Jeremiah (Down, S.) | Seddon, J. |
| Greenwood, Hamar (York) | M'Crae, Sir George | Shackleton, David James |
| Grey, Rt. Hon. Sir Edward | M'Kenna, Rt. Hon. Reginald | Shipman, Dr. John G. |
| Griffith, Ellis J. | M'Laren, H. D. (Stafford, W.) | Snowden, P. |
| Gulland, John W. | M'Micking, Major G. | Stanger, H. Y. |
| Hall, Frederick | Mallet, Charles E. | Stanley, Albert (Staffs, N. W.) |
| Halpin, J. | Mansfield, H. Rendall (Lincoln) | Stewart-Smith, D. (Kendal) |
| Harcourt, Rt. Hn. L. (Rossendale | Marnham, F. J. | Straus, B. S. (Mile End) |
| Harcourt, Robert V. (Montrose) | Massie, J. | Summerbell, T. |
| Hardy, George A. (Suffolk) | Middlebrook, William | Taylor,, Theodore C. (Radcliffe) |
| Harmsworth, Cecil B. (Worc'r) | Montagu, Hon. E. S. | Thorne, G. R. (Wolverhampton) |
| Hart-Davies, T. | Montgomery, H. G. | Thorne, William (West Ham) |
| Harvey, A. G. C. (Rochdale) | Morse, L. L. | Trevelyan, Charles Philips |
| Harvey, W. E. (Derbyshire, N. E.) | Murray, Capt. Hn. A. C. (Kincard. | Vivian, Henry |
| Haslam, James (Derbyshire) | Myer, Horatio | Walsh, Stephen |
| Haworth, Arthur A. | Norton, Capt. Cecil William | Ward, John (Stoke-upon-Trent) |
| Hazel, Dr. A. E. | Nuttall, Harry | Wardle, George J. |
| Hedges, A. Paget | O'Brien, Kendall (Tipperary Mid | Waterlow, D. S. |
| Henderson, Arthur (Durham) | O'Kelly, James (Roscommon, N. | Wedgwood, Josiah C. |
| Henderson, J. M. (Aberdeen, W.) | Parker, James (Halifax) | White, J. Dundas (Dumbart'nsh |
| Herbert, T. Arnold (Wycombe) | Pickersgill, Edward Hare | Whitehead, Rowland |
| Higham, John Sharp | Pirie, Duncan V. | Whitley, John Henry (Halefax) |
| Hooper, A. G. | Pollard, Dr. | Whittaker, Rt. Hn. Sir Thomas P. |
| Horniman, Emslie John | Ponsonby, Arthur A. W. H. | Wiles, Thomas |
| Hudson, Walter | Power, Patrick Joseph | Wilkie, Alexander |
| Hutton, Alfred Eddison | Price, C. E. (Edinb'gh, Central) | Wilson, Henry J. (York, W. R.) |
| Illingworth, Percy H. | Price, Sir Robert J. (Norfolk, E.) | Wilson, P. W. (St. Pancras, S.) |
| Jardine, Sir J. | Rea, Russell (Gloucester) | Wilson, W. T. (Westhoughton) |
| Johnson, John (Gateshead) | Rea, Walter Russell (Searboro') | Winfrey, R. |
| Jones, Leif (Appleby) | Rees, J. D. | |
| Kearley, Sir Hudson E. | Rendall, Athelstan | TELLERS FOR THE NOES—Master of Elibank and Mr. Herbert Lewis. |
| Kekewich, Sir George | Richards, T. F. (Wolverh'mpt'n) | |
| King, Alfred John (Knutsford) | Roberts, Charles H. (Lincoln) | |
| Laidlaw, Robert | Robertson, Sir G. Scott (Bradfrd) | |
| Layland-Barratt, Sir Francis | Robertson, J. M. (Tyneside) |
§ MR. CAVEsaid his Amendment provided to confine the penalty for allowing a child to be in the bar to a publican who knowingly committed that offence. There was a consequential Amendment to leave out the subsection which provided that if a child was found in a bar, the publican was to be presumed to be guilty unless he proved himself innocent. The point he desired to make was quite apart from the matter they had been discussing, and he regretted to see the principle introduced and extended in our laws. The effect was to cast an unfair burden on those carrying out this particular trade. If a publican made a mistake in the age of the child he was to be fined and have his licence endangered, or, again, an offence might be committed while the publican was away from the premises, and although he had given strict instructions, and was absolutely free from any 1676 blame, he was to be criminally punished. That was the kind of thing he wanted to prevent. It was perfectly true that a publican was liable for permitting drunkenness unless he proved that he took all proper precautions, but he had known more than one hard case under that provision. There was a well-known case where the publican was actually asleep when the drunken person came into the bar, and he was fined and his licence was endangered; and there was another where the publican's instructions to his manager were disobeyed, and the publican was fined and lost his licence. The Solicitor-General had referred to the fact that under the Intoxicating Liquor Act of 1901 where the word "knowingly" was inserted a case had been decided in which a publican got off on proving that he had given strict orders to his servants to obey the Act, and they had disobeyed them. He did not think that was a very 1677 serious consequence of inserting the word. If he gave proper orders he ought not to be personally liable if they were disobeyed, but the servant ought to be liable.
§ MR. GRETTONsaid he did not go so far as to say the clause was intended more for the punishment of the licensee than for the protection of children, but unless amended, it laid the Government open to the accusation that they were more interested in penalising the licensee. It required very strong argument to set on one side the principle that a man should be deemed innocent until he was proved guilty. If he had taken every reasonable precaution that the law should be obeyed it would be an enormous hardship if he was penalised for some accidental infringement of the clause by the endorsement of his licence, which was a long step towards losing it, and with it his livelihood. He did not think the fact that the law was not enforced in one case owing to some misunderstanding of the word "knowingly" would convince the House that there should be a general upheaval of the legal principle that an accused man should be held to be innocent until he was proved to be guilty.
§
Amendment proposed to the Lords' Amendment—
In line 4, after the word 'licence,' to insert the word 'knowingly.'"—(Mr. Cave.)
§ Question proposed, "That the word 'knowingly' be there inserted."
§ SIR S. EVANSsaid the principle that had been alluded to as a general principle of law relating to criminal matters was a very good one, that a man should be presumed to be innocent until he was proved to be guilty. But it was generally understood that that principle had been a good deal encroached upon in recent Acts of Parliament, and in a case of this kind the principle was invoked without sufficient foundation. Of course, he was not, as a lawyer, going to argue that an offence under the Licensing Act of 1872, or a contravention of this particular section, was not in some sense a criminal offence involving a criminal charge, but it was only a criminal 1678 charge in the sense that it was not upon the line of matters relating to civil law. Ordinarily speaking, when they talked about criminal law they meant the commission of a crime. This no doubt was a contravention of an Act of Parliament, and upon a prosecution for an offence under it there could be a conviction. Was it right, or was it not, to say that a man could not be convicted in a case of this kind, unless he knowingly committed that offence? They started here from this principle. Prima facie the presence of a child under fourteen in a public-house showed an offence. He ought not to be there said Parliament. Was it too much to say, therefore, that where that did occur the person who was responsible for the conduct of the business of the house, and to whom had been entrusted the position of being responsible for the conduct of the licensed premises, unless he proved that he used due diligence to prevent contravention of the Act, must he held to be guilty? The Amendment must be taken in conjunction with a consequential Amendment to leave out subsection (3). If the provision was considered with the provision in subsection (3), he did not think the House would say they were doing anything unreasonable in making this proposal, because what happened was that, where a child was found on licensed premises the holder of the licence could show, if he could, that he had used due diligence to prevent the child being admitted to the bar. That was to say, that as the person responsible for the conduct of the business of the house, he had taken such precautions as in the ordinary course of things would prevent this contravention of the Act. They thought that was a perfectly reasonable enactment to make, and they said also, first of all, that there was ample precedent for it, and if they put in the word "knowingly" it would open the door to a great deal of possible evasion. The Act of 1901 was an infraction of the 1872 Act, and did not provide precedent for them to follow. The precedent for them to follow was that of the 1872 Act, which made the licensed victualler himself liable whether he committed the offence by himself or through another for whom he was 1679 responsible. There were similar precedents in other statutes. In the Coal Mines Regulation Act of 1887 they had the same kind of legislation, the manager, agent or owner who was the person responsible for the mine prima facie being made liable. He thought the use of the word "knowingly" could easily be shown to be productive of a good deal of confusion. A magistrate had recently said that when the comic history of English legislation came to be written they would discover that the word "knowingly" was inserted in an Act of Parliament in order to make the Act a dead letter. Dealing with a similar matter of legislation in 1898 there was a proposal made in the House of Keys to insert the word "knowingly" and that assembly decided against the insertion. He thought that the Act had worked very well without it in the Isle of Man, and he hoped that in this matter the House of Commons would not tall below the standard of the House of Keys.
§ MR. BERTRAMdiffered from the Solicitor-General when he said that they should follow the 1872 Act rather than the Act of 1901. The use of the word "knowingly" was due to the fact that there was cast upon the licensee in the 1901 Act an obligation not to serve persons below a certain age. By using the word "knowingly" it was intended that the licence-holder should take reasonable precautions as to the age of the person he served with liquor. That Act had not been a dead letter. On the contrary, it had been productive of excellent results since it was passed. There had been isolated cases where it had failed, but that had not been due to the use of the word "knowingly." If the word "knowingly" was not included in this subsection, he thought a licensee would find himself in a tight place if, after proceedings were taken, the licensing justices decided under Section 122 that the age of a child was thirteen and it might subsequently turn out that the child was fourteen and a half. He thought it was very unfair not to insert the word.
§ * MR. HERBERT SAMUELsaid there was some substance in the contention of 1680 his hon. friend. In a case where a licence-holder had been dealing with a person who looked sixteen but might subsequently be proved to be under fourteen, a possible injustice might occur. He thought the burden of disproof, however, should rest upon the licence-holder. He thought the case could be met by adding at the end of subsection (3) the words "or that the child is a person apparently over the age of fourteen."
§ Amendment to the Lords' Amendment negatived.
§
Lords' Amendment amended by inserting—
In line 15, at the end, the words 'or that the child was apparently a person over the age of fourteen.'"—(Mr. Herbert Samuel.)
§ Amendment agreed to.
§ MR. HERBERT SAMUEL moved to insert in line 1 of subsection (4) words to prevent the application of the subsection "in the case of any child of the licence-holder." He said it had been pointed out that there were cases, and especially in Scotland, where the publican did not reside upon the licensed premises. His child might bring his meals to him, and that was a case which Government thought should be met by this Amendment.
§
Amendment proposed to the Lords' Amendment—
In line 16, after the word 'apply,' to insert the words 'in the case of any child of the licence-holder or.'"—(Mr. Herbert Samuel.)
§ Question proposed, "That those words be there inserted."
§ VISCOUNT HELMSLEY (Yorkshire, N.R., Thirsk)said he did not see the force of the right hon. Gentleman's argument, because there was nothing in the clause to prevent a child going into licensed premises. The right hon. Gentleman had said there was nothing to prevent a child going to other parts of the premises so long as it was not to a bar.
§ * MR. HERBERT SAMUELThere are many public-houses which are all bar.
§ VISCOUNT HELMSLEYsaid the definition of "bar" given by the right hon. Gentleman was rather wider than he cared for, but it emphasised the point which he wished to bring under notice.
§ Amendment to Lords' Amendment, agreed to.
§ *MR. HERBERT SAMUEL moved to insert words to make the clause inapplicable to a child who was in the bar of licensed premises solely for the purpose of passing through in order to obtain access to some other part of the premises, not being a bar, where there was no other convenient means of access to that part of the premises. He said there were a certain number of public houses where the bar was a passage, so to speak, and it was only possible to get to the publican's private apartments or other parts of the premises by passing straight through the bar. Technically, a child so passing through might he held to be in the bar, and consequently there would be an offence committed by the licence-holder. He did not suppose any conviction would be obtained, but in order to make it clear that there was no offence in such a case he moved the Amendment.
§
Amendment proposed to the Lords' Amendment—
In line 17, after the word 'premises,' to insert the words 'or who is in the bar of licensed premises solely for the purpose of passing through in order to obtain access to some other part of the premises, not being a bar, where there is no other convenient means of access to that part of the premises.'"—(Mr. Herbert Samuel.)
§ Question proposed, "That those words be there inserted."
§ MR. CHARLES ROBERTS (Lincoln)said he could not help deprecating the words of the Amendment which the right hon. Gentleman proposed to insert. It was said that the child would only be passing through the bar in order to get to the private premises of the publican. He quite admitted that a child's passing through a bar was a minor point; but, at the same time, he felt quite convinced that whenever there was an offence of this sort the defence invariably would be that the child was there to pay a visit to a playmate, 1682 and they could always get a number of people to take an oath that that was the case. He did not see why the House of Commons should be below the temperance opinion which obtained in the House of Lords, and he wished to make his protest against the Amendment.
§ MR. GULLAND (Dumfries Burghs)said he would like to associate himself with what had been said by the hon. Member for Lincoln. He was sure that if the Amendment were accepted, the ingenuity of the trade would get round the first subsection of the clause. He wished the Under-Secretary would state what he meant by the words in his Amendment—"some other part of the premises." The right hon. Gentleman mentioned in the discussion of a previous Amendment the case of Scotland. He knew of very few cases where a licence-holder had his entrance to his house through a bar; and if there was an eating place in the establishment, in his opinion, the access to it should not be through the bar. The access to the living part of the house should by a separate door, and not through the bar. He was extremely sorry that the right hon. Gentleman should have proposed this Amendment.
§ MR. GRETTONsaid that the speeches of the two hon. Gentlemen who had just spoken were the strongest comment possible on the administration of the licensing laws. He did not quarrel with these hon. Gentlemen. He recognised that they held extreme views. All he wanted to point out was that there was a structural difficulty in many licensed premises in the way of having a door by which a child might go in to the living part of the house without going through the bar. He did not suppose that the two hon. Gentleman opposite were prepared to go the length of saying seriously that in all cases and in all circumstances and on all occasions, the children of a licence-holder should be prohibited from going into licensed premises or entering the bar even for the purpose of taking their meals with their parents in a room set apart for that purpose.
§ * SIR FRANCIS CHANNINGsaid h[...] would like to associate himself with what had been said by the hon. Member for 1683 Lincoln and the hon. Member for Dumfries Burghs, because it was perfectly obvious from the unanswerable arguments of his right hon. friend in reply to the Member for Huntingdonshire, that the words proposed to be now inserted in this clause would render evasion even more easy under that Amendment. It seemed to him that it would be most unfortunate if they accepted this Amendment, which would re-open the door which had been closed by the non-acceptance of the Amendment of the hon. Member for Huntingdonshire.
§ MR. REEShoped the right hon. Gentleman the Under-Secretary would stick to his guns. He objected to the suggestion of the hon. Member for Lincoln that the standard of temperance in the House of Lords was higher than in the House of Commons. He wondered whether the hon. Members who objected to this Amendment had ever visited an ordinary public-house. Since the Licensing Bill was introduced, he himself had taken the trouble to inspect a great number of public-houses, and he could say that unless some such Amendment as was proposed by the right hon. Gentleman were accepted there could be no access whatever to the non-bar parts of the licensed premises. The hon. Member for Lincoln had suggested that there was always a back entrance to a public-house; but his experience in visiting a great number of public-houses was that in the majority of them there was absolutely no access to the living premises except from the front part of the house. It really seemed to him that an objection to so moderate an Amendment as that proposed by the Under-Secretary was the high-water mark of intolerance.
§ MR. CHERRYdid not think there was any Member in the House who was more anxious than himself to keep children out of public-house bars; but he thought it would be unreasonable not to allow children to pass through a bar for the purpose of getting tea with their parents when that was the only means of access. The hon. Member for Dumfries Burghs said that another access should be made. That reminded him of the story of a distinguished Fellow 1684 of Trinity College who made a large hole in the door of his coach-house for the admission of the dog, and another smaller one for the admission of the cat. The hon. Member seemed to wish that there should be one door for the licence-holder and another smaller one for the children. He thought the Amendment was a reasonable one and ought to be accepted.
§ MR. JESSE COLLINGSsaid that the hon. and learned Gentleman had stated that it would be unreasonable not to accept the Amendment. He himself thought that the clause, amended or unamended, was unreasonable and unworkable, because in the majority of country inns and small public-houses on the roadside every room on the ground floor was a bar, and a child could not go to the living room where she might have tea with her parents without going through a bar. That constituted the hardship and the injustice of the clause.
§ Amendment to the Lords' Amendment, agreed to.
§
Amendment made to the Lords Amendment—
By inserting in line 3 of subsection (4), after the word 'of,' the words 'railway refreshment rooms, or other.'"—(Mr. Herbert Samuel.)
§ SIR D. GODDARD (Ipswich)in moving to omit the words "or any part of the premises" from the definition of the word "bar," said he yielded to no one in his desire to save children from any contamination which might arise from their going into public-houses. He supported this clause as it came down from another place, and he believed the great majority of licence-holders would agree in the desire to keep children out of the drinking bar of their places, but the question arose as to whether the clause did not go further than was really intended. The matter had been raised several times that evening, and he would not go into it at length, but he would take the case of "trippers" at the sea-side. They very often took their provisions for the day, and they went to eat or were driven by a storm for shelter into a 1685 room attached to licensed premises for that purpose. He supposed it was mainly provided by the publican for the purpose of dispensing drink, but that was the only place to which these people could go, and it seemed to him that there was a great deal of difference between keeping children out of bars and keeping them out of that perfectly innocent place. Or take again the case of people who went into a country town for the market. They put up their horse and cart at a public-house. The man went to the market and the family went into the town to do their shopping. The public-house was their place of meeting, and there was a room where they met. No doubt that room at some time in the day, certainly in the evening, would be correctly described as being mainly used for the supply of intoxicating liquor, though, perhaps, during the day it was not used for that purpose, but was used by people who went there to take their snack of food, although, doubtless, they might have drink. It seemed to him to be going too far in such a case as that to put it under a clause like this. He had put down an Amendment to leave out the words "or any part of the premises," but he was quite willing to admit that that might not be the best way of effecting the object he had at heart, and he would be most willing to accept any words which would meet his case in a better way. At present he did not see how they could meet this very legitimate use of licensed premises by children, who were always accompanied by their parents, except by omitting these words. The right hon. Gentleman would probably tell him that the case was covered by the words "mainly used," and if it was a place which was "mainly used" for the purpose of taking food as well as liquor that it would not come under this clause. If he could give him a positive assurance of that kind he was perfectly willing to accept it, but he would be most interested in hearing what he had to say in regard to the matter. In order that he might do so he begged to move the Amendment.
§ * MR. WHITBREADseconded, and said the Amendment was entirely in accord with one he moved previously. 1686 The object of the clause, he took it, was to prevent the child from being taken into what was usually known as a bar, and he repeated what had often been shown in the course of this debate, that if they adopted the definition clause as it stood on the Paper in respect of a large number of country Tillage inns there was no part of the ground floor which would not properly come under the provisions of this clause, and as the discussion had gone on it had become more and more obvious that in various parts of the House there was growing up a feeling that if this definition was to be adhered to in its entirety it would go far beyond the intentions of this new clause, and very far beyond its intentions as it originally appeared in the Licensing Bill on the Second Reading. It would also inflict a certain amount of hardship, which he thought they should always avoid if they could. He hoped they should not hear about this Amendment the argument which had been frequently used, that it would lead to evasions of the law. That was the answer to the Amendment which he moved himself, but the right hon. Gentleman accepted an Amendment which certainly admitted of far more risk of evasion of the law than his, he meant the proposal which allowed a child to be in a bar on the pretext that it was passing through to another part of the premises. He could not imagine a proposal which would give rise to more attempts at evasion than that, and he could not help feeling some sympathy with his hon. friend behind him when that argument was used against him. The hon. Member who moved the Amendment was thoroughly in accord with the spirit of this clause, and was, he knew, deeply impressed with the desirability of excluding children from what was called the contaminating influence of a bar. When they talked about that they had in their minds the brightly lit, large, attractive bar of a large urban gin palace, and they had not in their minds, and he did not think this clause was ever intended to cover the case of the small country village inn, which had been so aptly described by the hon. Member for Bordesley. That was a case in which, if this definition was adhered to, there would be a certain amount of unmerited and unintended 1687 inconvenience, and if they could have words which would get rid of that he hoped the Government would adopt them. He begged to second.
§
Amendment proposed to the Lords' Amendment—
In line 22, to leave out the words 'or any part of the premises.'"—(Sir D. Goddard.)
§ Question proposed, "That the words proposed to be left out stand part of the Lords' Amendment."
§ * MR. HERBERT SAMUELsaid the hon. Gentleman had warned him about accepting Amendments which would lead to evasion, and he should certainly bear his warning in mind in asking the House not to accept this Amendment. The intention of the proposal was to limit the prohibition of this clause only to the case of open drinking bars, whatever they might be, but he did not think it should be limited to that. From his point of view the mischief which the clause aimed at was just the same whether the facilities were actually in the form of a bar, or a room furnished with small tables and used mainly for purposes of drinking. It was just as desirable to exclude children from that particular room as from the open bar. In almost all better class inns there were rooms mainly used for meals or for commodities non-alcoholic. So far as these rooms existed children would be admitted. If they did not exist the children ought not to be admitted. To accept the Amendment would be to defeat the purpose of the clause.
§ VISCOUNT HELMSLEYsaid the speech which the right hon. Gentleman had just delivered showed a change of front from that which he adopted earlier in the afternoon, because he then gave as his description of a bar the commonly applied form which did not refer to rooms which were used for other purposes as well as for the sale of drink. His own attitude on this clause depended very largely upon the definition of the word "bar," and it seemed to him the crux of the whole position. He should like to see children prevented from going into a bar strictly so-called, and from being taken into those attached 1688 to the gin-palaces which were described just before by the hon. Gentleman opposite; but he agreed with the right hon. Member for Bordesley that they would create great hardship in rural districts it they prevented children being on licensed premises at all, because, unless this Amendment were accepted that was what it meant, and no matter at what inconvenience to the parent the child would not be allowed to come within the door. That was a very far-reaching provision, and went beyond what was proposed when the original Licensing Bill came before the House, and if the clause remained in that position he would not be prepared to support it, although he thought there was a considerable amount of good in it, inasmuch as it prevented a child from going into what was understood by an ordinary bar. It had been said by hon. Members that this House ought not to adopt a lower standard of temperance than that which had been attained even in the House of Lords. That was not an argument to which too much attention should be paid, although it was a new thing for hon. Members opposite to hold up the House of Lords as being so immaculate that their decisions should not be altered. The House of Lords made no secret of the fact that this was not a clause put in on their own initiative. It was salvage from the Bill which they had rejected. They said, although the Bill was bad still there were some good things in it, and they took this out of it. It was a clause that had never been discussed in this House, and, therefore, it was legitimate to discuss it now, in order that it might be made workable, and the great injustice that it entailed removed. He, personally, would prefer the words of his hon. friend which defined the position more closely, and said—
Does not mean any bar in a room usually used for the supply of meals.That was a better form of words and conveyed more accurately what they would like to see carried in the Bill. He had no objection to children being prevented from going into the actual bar of a public-house, but they wished to preserve to them the rooms not mainly or exclusively used for the consumption and sale of liquor. As a rule, the only 1689 room which would be used for this purpose in a country public-house would be the parlour, and that would be the only room which would not be open to the children.
§ MR. REESsaid that his right hon. friend spoke, as if quoting from the Lords' Amendment, of a room used mainly or exclusively for the sale of intoxicating liquor. If those had been the words of the Amendment he would have entirely agreed with his right hon. friend, but the words were, "any part of the premises" which introduced an important distinction. Without going to the rural public-house, which certainly was far more deserving of considerate treatment than the gin-palace, he might point out that there were many houses in the
§ suburbs of London where there was beside the bar a sort of annex, furnished with tables and chairs, where many people partook of perfectly innocent refreshments. Under the terms of this subsection "any part of the premises" would apply to such an annex. Did the right hon. Gentleman the Under-Secretary really mean to contend that such a place was on the same footing as a room mainly or exclusively used for the consumption or sale of liquor? If not, would he consider the Amendment which had been moved by his hon. friend, and which had been seconded and supported in such extremely moderate terms.
§ Question put.
§ The House divided:—Ayes, 166 Noes, 34. (Division List No. 458.)
1691| AYES. | ||
| Abraham, William (Rhondda) | Dobson, Thomas W. | Jowett, F. W. |
| Allen, Charles P. (Stroud) | Duckworth, Sir James | Kearley, Sir Hudson E. |
| Armitage, R. | Duncan, C. (Barrow-in-Furness) | Kekewich, Sir George |
| Armstrong, W. G. Heaton | Edwards, Enoch (Hanley) | Laidlaw, Robert |
| Baker, Joseph A. (Finsbury, E.) | Edwards, Sir Francis (Radnor) | Layland-Barratt, Sir Francis |
| Barlow, Percy (Bedford) | Erskine, David C. | Lehmann, R. C. |
| Barnes, G. N. | Esslemont, George Birnie | Lewis, John Herbert |
| Barrie, H. T. (Londonderry, N.) | Evans, Sir Samuel T. | Lyell, Charles Henry |
| Beale, W. P. | Everett, R. Lacey | Macdonald, J. R. (Leicester) |
| Bell, Richard | Fenwick, Charles | Macdonald, J. M. (Falkirk B'ghs) |
| Benn, W. (T'w'r Hamlets, S. Geo. | Ferens, T. R. | Maclean, Donald |
| Bennett, E. N. | Fiennes, Hon. Eustace | Macnamara, Dr. Thomas J. |
| Birrell, Rt. Hon. Augustine | Forster, Henry William | M'Crae, Sir George |
| Bowerman, C. W. | Gibb, James (Harrow) | M'Kenna, Rt. Hon. Reginald |
| Brace, William | Gill, A. H. | M'Laren, H. D. (Stafford, W.) |
| Bramsdon, T. A. | Glendinning, R. G. | M'Micking, Major G. |
| Bright, J. A. | Greenwood, G. (Peterborough) | Mallet, Charles E. |
| Brunner, J. F. L. (Lancs., Leigh) | Greenwood, Hamar (York) | Mansfield, H. Rendall (Lincoln) |
| Bryce, J. Annan | Grey, Rt. Hon. Sir Edward | Marks, G. Croydon (Launceston) |
| Burns, Rt. Hon. John | Gulland, John W. | Marnham, F. J. |
| Burt, Rt. Hon. Thomas | Gurdon, Rt Hn Sir W. Brampton | Massie, J. |
| Buxton, Rt. Hn. Sydney Charles | Hall, Frederick | Middlebrook, William |
| Byles, William Pollard | Harcourt, Rt. Hn. L. (Rossendale | Montagu, Hon. E. S. |
| Cameron, Robert | Harcourt, Robert V. (Montrose) | Morgan, G. Hay (Cornwall) |
| Carr-Gomm, H. W. | Hardy, George A. (Suffolk) | Morse, L. L. |
| Causton, Rt. Hn. Richard Knight | Harmsworth, Cecil B. (Worc'r.) | Murray, Capt Hn A. C. (Kincard.) |
| Channing, Sir Francis Allston | Hart-Davies, T. | Myer, Horatio |
| Cherry, Rt. Hon. R. R. | Harvey, A. G. C. (Rochdale) | Norton, Capt. Cecil William |
| Cleland, J. W. | Harvey, W. E. (Derbyshire, N. E. | Nuttall, Harry |
| Clough, William | Haslam, James (Derbyshire) | O'Kelly, James (Roscommon, N) |
| Collins, Stephen (Lambeth) | Haslam, Lewis (Monmouth) | Parker, James (Halifax) |
| Collins, Sir Wm. J. (S. Pancras, W. | Haworth, Arthur A. | Partington, Oswald |
| Cooper, G. J. | Henderson, Arthur (Durham) | Pickersgill, Edward Hare |
| Corbett, C H (Sussex, E. Grinst'd | Higham, John Sharp | Pirie, Duncan V. |
| Cotton, Sir H. J. S. | Hobhouse, Charles E. H. | Price, C. E. (Edinb'gh, Central) |
| Cowan, W. H. | Hooper, A. G. | Price, Sir Robert J. (Norfolk, E.) |
| Crooks, William | Horniman, John Emslie | Rea, Russell (Gloucester) |
| Crosfield, A. H. | Howard, Hon. Geoffrey | Rea, Walter Russell (Scarboro') |
| Curran, Peter Francis | Hudson, Walter | Rendall, Athelstan |
| Dalziel, Sir James Henry | Hutton, Alfred Eddison | Richards, T. F. (Wolverh'mpt'n |
| Davies, Timothy (Fulham) | Illingworth, Percy H. | Roberts, Charles H. (Lincoln) |
| Davies, Sir W. Howell (Bristol, S.) | Jardine, Sir J. | Robertson, J. M. (Tyneside) |
| Dewar, Arthur (Edinburgh, S.) | Johnson, John (Gateshead) | Robinson, S. |
| Dickinson, W. H. (St. Pancras, N. | Jones, Leif (Appleby) | Robson, Sir William Snowdon |
| Roch, Walter P. (Pembroke) | Taylor, Theodore C. (Radcliffe) | Whitley, John Henry (Halifax) |
| Rogers, F. E. Newman | Thompson, J. W. H. (Somerset, E. | Whittaker, Rt. Hn. Sir Thomas P. |
| Samuel, Rt. Hn. H. L. (Cleveland) | Thorne, G. R. (Wolverhampton) | Wiles, Thomas |
| Scott, A. H. (Ashton-under-Lyne | Thorne, William (West Ham) | Wilkie, Alexander |
| Seddon, J. | Trevelyan, Charles Philips | Wilson, J. H. (Middlesbrough) |
| Shackleton, David James | Verney, F. W. | Wilson, P. W. (St. Pancras, S.) |
| Shaw, Rt. Hon. T. (Hawick B.) | Vivian, Henry | Wilson, W. T. (Westhoughton) |
| Shipman, Dr. John G. | Walsh, Stephen | Winfrey, R. |
| Smeaton, Donald Mackenzie | Ward, John (Stoke-upon-Treat) | |
| Snowden, P. | Wardle, George J. | TELLERS FOR THE AYES—Mr. Joseph Pease and Master of Elibank. |
| Stanley, Albert (Staffs, N. W.) | Waterlow, D. S. | |
| Straus, B. S. (Mile End) | Wedgwood, Josiah C. | |
| Summerbell, T. | White, J. Dundas (Dumbart'nsh. | |
| NOES. | ||
| Abraham, William (Cork, N. E.) | Courthope, G. Loyd | Kennaway, Rt. Hn. Sir John H. |
| Acland-Hood, Rt Hn Sir Alex. F. | Craik, Sir Henry | Mason, James F. (Windsor) |
| Balcarres, Lord | Fell, Arthur | Nield, Herbert |
| Banbury, Sir Frederick George | Fletcher, J. S. | Rawlinson, John Frederick Peel |
| Banner, John S. Harmood- | Forster, Henry William | Ronaldshay, Earl of |
| Beck, A. Cecil | Gretton, John | Stewart-Smith, D. (Kendal) |
| Bowles, G. Stewart | Halpin, J. | Valentia, Viscount |
| Carlile, E. Hildred | Hardy, Laurence (Kent, Ashf'rd) | Warde, Col. C. E. (Kent, Mid) |
| Cave, George | Hazel, Dr. A. E. | |
| Cecil, Evelyn (Aston Manor) | Helmsley, Viscount | TELLERS FOR THE NOES—Sir Daniel Goddard and Mr. Whitbread. |
| Cecil, Lord R. (Marylebone, E.) | Herbert, T. Arnold (Wycombe) | |
| Coates, Major E. F. (Lewisham) | Houston, Robert Paterson | |
| Callings, Rt. Hn. J. (Birmingh'm | Hunt, Rowland |
§ MR. HUNT moved to leave out the words "exclusively or mainly," and to insert the words "not entirely." He thought all the difference centred round the words "used mainly." It was very difficult to say how lawyers might interpret them. He knew of a public-house where there was one room which was not a bar, but in which people were served when the actual bar was full. Probably it would be held that that room was part of licensed premises where children could not be taken. It would be the same in a good many other cases. A man would not be able to take his wife and children into a public-house after they had been out for a walk or a drive, to get a cup of coffee, tea, or whatever they might want. The acceptance of the words "not entirely" instead of "used mainly" would certainly get rid of considerable difficulty. He could assure the hon. Gentleman that in his part of the world the people were not at all pleased about the clause. They said it would prevent them getting any refreshment for their children when they went out for a walk on a Saturday or a Sunday. He hoped the Government would see their way to accept the words he proposed.
§ SIR F. BANBURYseconded.
§
Amendment proposed to the Lords' Amendment—
In line 22 to leave out the words 'exclusively or mainly,' in order to insert the words 'not entirely.'"—(Mr. Hunt.)
§ Question proposed, "That the words proposed to be left out stand part of the Lords' Amendment."
§ * MR. HERBERT SAMUELsaid this was the most extraordinary Amendment moved in the history of this or any other Bill.
§ SIR F. BANBURYMy hon. friend, of course, meant to move to insert the word "entirely" and not the words "not entirely."
§ * MR. HERBERT SAMUELThen the hon. Baronet who seconds presumes the Amendment proposes precisely the opposite to what it does. If the clause were amended as proposed, it would read: "In this section the bar of licensed premises means any open drinking bar or any part of the premises not entirely used for the sale and consumption of intoxicating liquor." A publican's bedroom was not entirely used for the consumption of liquor; but that would 1693 come under the hon. Gentleman's proposed definition of a bar. Presuming that the hon. Gentleman meant the opposite to what he said, and that he really wanted to insert the word "entirely" and not the words "not entirely," what would be the consequence? The clause would then read: "In this section the bar of licensed premises means any open drinking bar or any part of the premises entirely used for the sale and consumption of intoxicating liquor." Whisky was usually accompanied by the innocuous soda-water, and every part of a public-house where alcohol was sold was also used for the sale of other commodities, cigars, cigarettes, lemonade, biscuits, etc. Consequently, the Amendment would not only carry them no further than the drinking bar, but indeed not so far, and it was, therefore, obvious the Government could not accept it.
§ MR. JESSE COLLINGSthought this line of banter was not becoming on the part of the Under-Secretary. He knew, whatever the words were, that the intention of the hon. Member was to lessen in some way the onerous and unfair conditions which the clause, as it stood, would impose upon people. The Under-Secretary might think it a laughing matter, but it would not be treated as a laughing matter elsewhere, when the effect of the clause with the definition unaltered had been felt.
§ Amendment to the Lords' Amendment negatived.
§ MR. RAWLINSON moved to insert the words "but does not mean any bar in a room usually used for the supply of meals." He said his Amendment was mainly intended to exempt from the clause railway refreshment rooms. The Government had accepted an Amendment dealing with railway refreshment rooms, but he asked them to extend their concession to other rooms, of which there were a large number in different parts of the country, in which a genuine refreshment business was carried on, but in which there happened to be a bar at one end. They did not come within the usual description of a bar. He trusted the Government would 1694 accept the Amendment, having regard to the great inconvenience which might be occasioned to people who travelled with children and went into a town for a day and who must necessarily take them somewhere for refreshment.
§ MR. GRETTONseconded. He could not say that he preferred the Amendment to that standing in his own name and which he put down having in mind places of holiday resort where the owners of licensed premises just outside railway stations were endeavouring to do genuine refreshment business. He knew a licence-holder outside one of the largest railway stations in London who had a refreshment bar and who offered every morning as a contract to give breakfast to upwards of thirty children who went by an early train to one of the noted colleges on the South side of London. In the evening also he offered to give them by contract teas before they separated and went by 'bus and other means their various ways home. Unless some exception was made such as was proposed by the Amendment it would be impossible for him to continue these contracts. It was the custom of many people to go into the towns on market days to do their shopping. In the case of small market towns they put up at the inn and in the case of the larger towns they put up at some inn just outside. He did not think any serious question of the interest of the trade was raised, but he thought some effort should be made to meet these cases. He seconded the Amendment in the interests of the public convenience, and on that ground alone.
§
Amendment proposed to the Lords' Amendment—
In line 23, after the word 'liquor,' to insert the words 'but does not mean any bar in a room usually used for the supply of meals.'"—(Mr. Rawlinson.)
§ Question proposed, "That the words proposed be there inserted."
§ * MR. HERBERT SAMUELthought the Amendment had substantially been considered by the House not on the question of railway refreshment bars, but on the question of the omission of the words "any part of the premises mainly or exclusively used for the sale and consumption of intoxicating liquor." If 1695 a room was mainly used for the purpose of supplying meals, it was clearly not mainly used for the purpose of intoxicating liquor.
§ MR. RAWLINSONsaid the bar of licensed premises meant any open drinking bar or any part of the premises exclusively or mainly used for the consumption of liquor. The kind of rooms he meant were those which had open drinking bars in them, and, therefore, would be hit by the fact that a child was in the same room in which there was an open bar, but was not using the drinking bar.
§ * MR. HERBERT SAMUELsaid a place of that kind which had an open drinking bar was a place aimed at by the clause, and the concession the hon. Gentleman asked for was clearly opposed to the underlying principle of the clause. If it was not an open drinking bar, if the ordinary consumption of liquor was not going on in the place, it would be exempt. If the ordinary consumption of liquor by casual persons coming in was going on, it ought not to be exempt. If it was analogous to a railway refreshment-room there was an exemption already provided in subsection (4) which was not limited to refreshment-rooms, but extended to all cases to which the holding of a licence was mainly auxiliary, and these cases were indicated in a Schedule to the Act of 1904, covering hotels, restaurants and eating-houses. On the other hand, if the Amendment were accepted the effect would be that any bar in a room in which meals were accustomed to be served would be exempt, even though the serving of meals was comparatively incidental. If the main purpose of the room was to enable customers to be served at the bar but incidentally, or even usually, other parts of the room were used for two or three people having meals, they would exempt the room altogether from, the operation of the clause. That, of course, was much too wide an extension, and would give rise to very great evasion. The places which the hon. Member really wanted to exempt were now exempted. Those which he did not want to bring in would be brought into the exemption if the Amendment were exempted.
§ MR. HUGH LAWdid not think it was quite the case that all the places which they desired to omit by the Amendment were really covered by the exemption. They were all at one in their object, he took it. Probably no one desired that children should be brought in and kept at the bar where people were drinking, but while it was true in the case of Ireland generally, that the houses were mainly houses in which other trades besides the sale of alcoholic liquor were carried on, and consequently would be exempted under the Amendment which the Attorney-General for Ireland was to move later, there were in certain districts houses of another kind in which there was a perfectly genuine refreshment business done. In Cork it was common for country people coming in to bring their families with them on market days to breakfast in public-houses. It might be very deplorable that there should be no other place for children to be brought, but that was unfortunately the case. It was all very well to say they could go to a tea-house, but supposing there were no tea-houses what was to be done? Was it or was it not the case that if a child was brought into a room in which there was a bar, for the purpose of being given breakfast, that child was in a bar under the terms of the section? He apprehended it would be. If there was any doubt about it, it ought to be made perfectly clear, but he was quite sure it was not the desire of the House nor of the Under-Secretary to create such difficulties as that. What the right hon. Gentleman was aiming at was the bringing in of children to places where drinking and drinking only was going on, and he was sure he did not want to exclude them from licensed premises because incidentally and at another time of the day there happened to be drinking going on in the same room.
§ MR. VERNEY (Buckinghamshire, N.)doubted whether the Amendment was properly drafted to carry out what the hon. and learned Gentleman meant. He did not think he meant exclusion from the bar, but exclusion from the room in which the bar was.
§ MR. RAWLINSONthought it expressed what he meant. It meant that the section was not to apply to a bar which was merely part of a refreshment room, and that had been accepted as far as railway rooms were concerned. He proposed to extend that to any hotel or
§ public-house which had a bar in one room in the same way.
§ Question put.
§ The House divided:—Ayes, 31; Noes, 182. (Division List No. 459.)
1699| AYES. | ||
| Abraham, William (Cork, N. E.) | Collings, Rt. Hn. J. (Birmingh'm) | Nield, Herbert |
| Acland-Hood, Rt. Hn. Sir Alex. F. | Courthope, G. Loyd | O'Brien, Patrick (Kilkenny) |
| Arkwright, John Stanhope | Craik, Sir Henry | Ronaldshay, Earl of |
| Balcarres, Lord | Fell, Arthur | Smith, Abel H. (Hertford, East) |
| Banbury, Sir Frederick George | Fletcher, J. S. | Staveley-Hill, Henry (Staff'sh. |
| Banner, John S. Harmood- | Forster, Henry William | Valentia, Viscount |
| Bowles, G. Stewart | Halpin, J. | Warde, Col. C. E. (Kent, Mid) |
| Carlile, E. Hildred | Hardy, Laurence (Kent, Ashford | |
| Cave, George | Hunt, Rowland | TELLERS FOR THE AYES—Mr. Rawlinson and Mr. Gretton. |
| Cecil, Evelyn (Aston Manor) | Kennaway, Rt. Hon. Sir John H. | |
| Cecil, Lord R. (Marylebone, E. | Mason, James F. (Windsor) | |
| Coates, Major E. F. (Lewisham) | Mooney, J. J. | |
| NOES. | ||
| Abraham, William (Rhondda) | Dickinson, W. H. (St. Pancras, N. | Illingworth, Percy H. |
| Allen, Charles P. (Stroud) | Dobson, Thomas W. | Jardine, Sir J. |
| Armitage, R. | Duckworth, Sir James | Johnson, John (Gateshead) |
| Armstrong, W. C. Heaton | Duncan, C. (Barrow-in-Furness | Jones, Leif (Appleby) |
| Baker, Joseph A. (Finsbury, E.) | Edwards, Sir Francis (Radnor) | Jowett, F. W. |
| Barlow, Percy (Bedford) | Erskine, David C. | Kearley, Sir Hudson E. |
| Barnes, G. N. | Esslemont, George Birnie | Kekewich, Sir George |
| Barrie, H. T. (Londonderry, N.) | Evans, Sir Samuel T. | Laidlaw, Robert |
| Beale, W. P. | Everett, R. Lacey | Lambert, George |
| Beck, A. Cecil | Fenwick, Charles | Layland-Barratt, Sir Francis |
| Bell, Richard | Ferens, T. R. | Lehmann, R. C. |
| Bellairs, Carlyon | Fiennes, Hon. Eustace | Lever, A. Levy (Essex, Harwich |
| Benn, W. (T'w'r Hamlets, S. Geo | Fuller, John Michael F. | Lewis, John Herbert |
| Bennett, E. N. | Gibb, James (Harrow) | Lloyd-George, Rt. Hon. David |
| Birrell, Rt. Hon. Augustine | Gill, A. H. | Lyell, Charles Henry |
| Bowerman, C. W. | Gladstone, Rt. Hn. Herbert John | Macdonald, J. R. (Leicester) |
| Brace, William | Glendinning, R. G. | Macdonald, J. M. (Falkirk B'ghs. |
| Bramsdon, T. A. | Glover, Thomas | Maclean, Donald |
| Bright, J. A. | Goddard, Sir Daniel Ford | Macnamara, Dr. Thomas J. |
| Brunner, J. F. L. (Lancs., Leigh) | Greenwood, G. (Peterborough) | MacNeill, John Gordon Swift |
| Bryce, J. Annan | Greenwood, Hamar (York) | MacVeagh, Jeremiah (Down, S. |
| Burns, Rt. Hon. John | Grey, Rt. Hon. Sir Edward | M'Crae, Sir George |
| Burt, Rt. Hon. Thomas | Gulland, John W. | M'Laren, H. D. (Stafford, W.) |
| Buxton, Rt. Hn. Sydney Charles | Gurdon, Rt. Hn. Sir W. Brampton | M'Micking, Major G. |
| Byles, William Pollard | Gwynn, Stephen Lucius | Mallet, Charles E. |
| Cameron, Robert | Hall, Frederick | Mansfield, H. Rendall (Lincoln) |
| Carr-Gomm, H. W. | Harcourt, Rt. Hn. L. (Rossendale | Marks, G. Croydon (Launceston) |
| Channing, Sir Francis Allston | Harcourt, Robert V. (Montrose | Marnham, F. J. |
| Cherry, Rt. Hon. R. R. | Hardy, George A. (Suffolk) | Massie, J. |
| Churchill, Rt. Hon. Winston S. | Harmsworth, Cecil B. (Worc'r) | Middlebrook, William |
| Cleland, J. W. | Harvey, A. G. C. (Rochdale) | Montagu, Hon. E. S. |
| Clough, William | Harvey, W. E. (Derbyshire, N. E. | Morgan, G. Hay (Cornwall) |
| Cobbold, Felix Thornley | Haslam, Lewis (Monmouth) | Morrell, Philip |
| Collins, Stephen (Lambeth) | Haworth, Arthur A. | Morse, L. L. |
| Collins, Sir Wm. J. (S. Pancras, W. | Hazel, Dr. A. E. | Morton, Alpheus Cleophas |
| Cooper, G. J. | Hedges, A. Paget | Murray, Capt. Hn. A. C. (Kincard. |
| Corbett, C. H. (Sussex, E. Grinst'd | Henderson, Arthur (Durham) | Myer, Horatio |
| Cornwall, Sir Edwin A. | Henry, Charles S. | Norton, Capt. Cecil William |
| Cotton, Sir H. J. S. | Herbert, T. Arnold (Wycombe) | Nuttall, Harry |
| Cowan, W. H. | Higham, John Sharp | O'Brien, Kendal Tipperary Mid |
| Crosfield, A. H. | Hobhouse, Charles E. H. | Parker, James (Halifax) |
| Dalziel, Sir James Henry | Horniman, Emslie John | Partington, Oswald |
| Davies, Timothy (Fulham) | Howard, Hon. Geoffrey | Pickersgill, Edward Hare |
| Davies, Sir W. Howell (Bristol, S. | Hudson, Walter | Pirie, Duncan V. |
| Dewar, Arthur (Edinburgh, S.) | Hutton, Alfred Eddison | Price, C. E. (Edinb'gh, Central) |
| Price, Sir Robert J. (Norfolk, E.) | Stanley, Albert (Staffs, N. W.) | Waterlow, D. S. |
| Rendall, Athelstan | Strachey, Sir Edward | Wedgwood, Josiah C. |
| Richards, T. F. (Wolverh'mpt'n | Straus, B. S. (Mile End) | White, J. Dundas (Dumbart'nsh. |
| Roberts, Charles H. (Lincoln) | Summerbell, T. | White, Patrick (Meath, North) |
| Robertson, J. M. (Tyneside) | Taylor, Theodore C. (Radcliffe) | Whitley, John Henry (Halifax) |
| Robinson, S. | Tennant, H. J. (Berwickshire) | Whittaker, Rt. Hn. Sir Thomas P. |
| Robson, Sir William Snowdon | Thompson, J. W. H. (Somerset, E. | Wiles, Thomas |
| Roch, Walter F. (Pembroke) | Thorne, G. R. (Wolverhampton) | Wilkie, Alexander |
| Rogers, F. E. Newman | Thorne, William (West Ham) | Williamson, A. |
| Samuel, Rt. Hn. H. L. (Cleveland | Tomkinson, James | Wilson, J. H. (Middlesbrough) |
| Scott, A. H. (Ashton under Lyne) | Trevelyan, Charles Philips | Wilson, W. T. (Westhoughton) |
| Seddon, J. | Verney, F. W. | Winfrey, R. |
| Seely, Colonel | Vivian, Henry | |
| Shackelton, David James | Walsh, Stephen | TELLERS FOR THE NOES—Mr. Joseph Pease and Master of Elibank. |
| Shaw, Rt. Hon. T. (Hawick, B.) | Ward, John (Stoke upon Trent) | |
| Shipman, Dr. John G. | Wardle, George J. | |
| Smeaton, Donald Mackenzie | Waring, Walter | |
| Snowden, P. | Warner, Thomas Courtenay T. |
Question put, and agreed to.
§ COLONEL WARDE (Kent, Medway) moved to add the following subsection, "(6) These provisions shall not apply to the holder of a licence of any licensed premises otherwise than in any urban area." He hoped, after what the right hon. Gentleman had already admitted as to the difference between rural and town public-houses, he might be inclined to accept the Amendment. He quite agreed that the surroundings in some of our large towns must be demoralising to children, but the case of innocent roadside rural public-houses was on a different footing. He could not help thinking that the right hon. Gentleman could not be as familiar with the inside of country public-houses as he claimed to be, or he would at once see the distinction be wished to draw.
§ MR. FLETCHER (Hampstead)seconded.
§
Amendment proposed to the Lords Amendment—
At the end to add the words '(6) These provisions shall not apply to the holder of a licence of any licensed premises otherwise than in any urban area.'"—(Colonel Warde.)
§ Question proposed, "That those words be there added."
§ MR. HERBERT SAMUELsaid the Government could not accept the Amendment. The village child needed protection just as the town child did, and there was no need for drawing this distinction. Besides, it should be remembered that among what were technically rural districts there were many cases of mining villages and small industrial towns where 1700 the circumstances were very similar to those prevailing in large towns. If the publican desired to give facilities for child messengers he could have a separate jug and bottle department for the purpose. If he desired to cater for persons having meals he ought to separate the rooms designed for that purpose from the ordinary bar.
§ Amendment negatived.
§ MR. RAWLINSONsaid he had put down an Amendment in order to draw the attention of the House to the different state of affairs existing in Ireland and Scotland from that in England. These clauses which had been added by the House of Lords were taken practically straight from the Licensing Bill, which did not apply to Ireland or Scotland, but he fancied those who put the new clauses into the Bill did not realise at the time they did it that they would apply to Ireland and Scotland as well. The state of affairs in Ireland was very different from that in England. In Ireland there was a very large number of shops where ordinary commodities were sold, and where there was a bar in which drink could be obtained. He was told the state of affairs in Scotland was different from that in England as well. He had put the Amendment on the Paper in order to draw the attention of Irish Members to it, but he did not propose to press it.
§ Lords' Amendment, as amended, agreed to.
§
Lords' Amendment—
In page 68, lines 1 and 2, to leave out the words 'Before making any order under this
1701
Act with respect to,' and to insert the words 'Where a person is brought before any Court, whether charged with an offence or not, and it appears to the Court that he is,'"—read a second time, and amended, by inserting, after the word "person," the words "whether charged with an offence or not," and by leaving out the words "whether charged with an offence or not," and inserting the words "otherwise than for the purpose of giving evidence."—(Mr. Herbert Samuel.)
§ Lords' Amendment, as amended, agreed to.
§
Lords' Amendments—
In page 68, line 3, to leave out the words 'the person alleged to be a child or young,' and to insert the word 'that.'
In page 68, line 5, to leave out the words 'the order when made,' and to insert the words 'an order or judgment of the Court.'
In page 68, line 9, to leave out the words 'alleged to be a child or young person,' and to insert the words 'so brought before it.'
In page 68, line 10, after the word 'person,' to insert the words 'and when it appears to the Court that the person so brought before it is of the age of sixteen years or upwards, that person shall for the purposes of this Act be deemed not to be a child or young person.'
§ Agreed to.
§
Lords' Amendment—
In page 68, line 25, to leave out the words 'by or.'
§ Read a second time.
§ * MR. HERBERT SAMUELsaid this was only a drafting Amendment, but he took the opportunity of moving to agree to draw the attention of the House to the fact that in all the provisions of this Bill there was now no new offence created committed by any child.
§ Motion made, and Question proposed, "That this House doth agree with the Lords in the said Amendment."
§ MR. GRETTONsaid he understood the general age of the children throughout the Bill was fourteen years. In the Amendment just carried it was stated it was sixteen years. The Government had not explained why they wanted the age in this particular clause to vary from the age in the general provisions of the Bill.
§ * MR. HERBERT SAMUELThe two ages run all through the Bill. The age of a child is fourteen, and the age of a young person is sixteen.
§ Lords' Amendment agreed to.
§
Lords' Amendment—
In page 68, line 31, to leave out the words 'by or.'
In page 70, line 12, to leave out the words 'Petty Sessional Court or.'
In page 70, line 13, after the word 'jurisdiction,' to insert the words 'whether a Petty Sessional Court or not.'
In page 70, line 18, to leave out the words 'Petty Sessional Courts and.'
In page 71, line 4, after the word 'person,' to insert the words 'The expression "common council" means the mayor, aldermen, and commons of the City of London in common council assembled.'
In page 71, line 8, after the word 'fund,' to insert the words 'as respects the City of London, mean the common council and the fund out of which the expenses of the city police are defrayed, and elsewhere.'
In page 71, line 40, after the word 'Scotland,' to insert the words 'shall be substituted for the Local Government Board and.'
In page 71, lines 40 and 41, to leave out the words 'be substituted for the Local Government Board,' and to insert the words 'for the purposes of Part I. of this Act, have the same powers of making inquiries, calling for returns, and applying to the Court of Session as they have for the purposes of the Poor Law (Scotland) Act, 1845.'
In page 73, line 9, after the word 'sat,' to insert the words 'and any similar expression.'
§ Agreed to.
§
Lords' Amendment—
In page 73, line 34, after the word '1890,' to insert the words 'Provided that, in the case of a royal parliamentary or police burgh, the expression 'police authority," where occurring in Section 58 and in Section 120 of this Act, means the town council; [and provided further, that where in any such burgh expenses chargeable to the police fund or as part of the current expenses of a police authority would, under the existing law, be payable out of the burgh general assessment, expenses so chargeable under the provisions of this Act shall be defrayed as expenses incurred by a town council under Section 74 of this Act.]'
§ Read a second time.
§ THE LORD ADVOCATE (Mr. THOMAS SHAW,) Hawick Burghssaid the Amendment appeared on the Paper in italics [the portion within brackets] to indicate that it related to finances; but it was quite in order, and he moved that the House do agree with it.
§ Motion made, and Question proposed, "That this House doth agree with the Lords in the said Amendment."
§ LORD R. CECILasked the Government if they were willing to make themselves a party to this gross infringement of their privileges. He understood it was a mere dodge resorted to to insert by a side wind an Amendment which would be a breach of their privileges, and he was indeed surprised that a democratic House of Commons, led by a democratic Government, should lend themselves to what they had described as a trick. This was the very plan which was held in 1902 by hon. and right hon. Gentlemen opposite to be a method of getting round the privileges of the House. He wished to know whether this was being sanctioned by a democratic Government.
§ Lords' Amendment agreed to.
§
Lords' Amendment—
In page 73, line 41, after the word '1907,' to insert the words 'and to any section thereof.'
§ Agreed to.
§
Lords' Amendment—
In page 74, line 5, after the word '1864,' to insert the words 'and the reference to the Licensing Acts, 1828 to 1906, as a reference to the Licensing Acts, 1828 to 1906, as a reference to the Licensing (Scotland) Act, 1903, provided that the expression "holder of a licence" means holder of a certificate under the last-mentioned Act.'
§ MR. THOMAS SHAW moved to disagree with the Lords' Amendment, and in lieu thereof to insert the following words: "and references in section one hundred and nineteen and section one hundred and twenty to a licence, to licensed premises, and to intoxicating liquor, respectively, as references to a certificate, to certificated premises, and to exciseable liquor, with the meaning of The Licensing (Scotland) Act, 1903." He explained that this Amendment was necessary in order to make the terminology of the Bill square with that contained in the Act of 1903.
§ Lords' Amendment disagreed to.
1704
§
Amendment made to the Bill—
Instead of the words so disagreed to, by inserting in page 74, line 5, after "1864," the words "and references in section one hundred and nineteen and section one hundred and twenty to a licence, to licensed premises, and to intoxicating liquor, respectively, as references to a certificate, to certificated premises, and to exciseable liquor, with the meaning of The Licensing (Scotland) Act, 1903."—(The Lord Advocate.)
§ Subsequent Lords Amendments to the Amendment in page 77, line 8, agreed to.
§
Lords' Amendment—
In page 77, line 8, after the word 'Scotland' to insert as a new subsection—'(24) Subject to the provisions hereinafter contained, nothing in this Act shall be construed to repeal, alter, prejudice, or affect any, of the provisions of the Glasgow Juvenile Delinquency Prevention and Repression Acts, 1878 and 1896 (hereinafter referred to as the Glasgow Acts, and the Commissioners and the directors acting under the Glasgow Acts shall continue to have the full rights, privileges, and powers at present competent to them. Provided, nevertheless, that the Secretary for Scotland may, by order under his hand, provide for altering, amending, or adapting the Glasgow Acts so as to provide: (a) For the retiral of the existing directors, for the re-constitution of the board of directors, for the election of new directors, for subsequent elections of directors, for the annual retiral of one-third or other proportion of the directors, and for supplying vacancies arising from time to time; [(b) for the assessments authorised to be levied under the Glasgow Acts being levied in the same manner as assessments for the expenses of a town council for the purposes of Section 74, of this Act instead of as in the Glasgow Acts provided, and for the reduction of the maximum amount thereof, if thought proper, and for the application of the said assessments]; (c) for authorising the said directors to grant securities over all lands and heritages vested in them, including school houses; (d) for raising the age tip to which, under the Glasgow Acts, a child may, upon the request of the school board, if the Court think it expedient, be sent to a certified day industrial school from thirteen years to fourteen years, and for providing that any order for payment of contributions by a parent under the Glasgow Acts shall be enforceable as a decree for aliment; and (e) for otherwise altering, amending, or adapting the provisions of the Glasgow Acts, as may seem to him necessary to make those provisions conform with the provisions of this Act, or to enable the powers under the Glasgow Acts to be exercised as if they were powers under this Act. Any such order may be revoked and varied by a subsequent order. (25) The immediately preceding subsection shall apply to the Aberdeen Reformatories and Industrial Schools Act, 1885, as if it were herein re-enacted with the omission of the portions thereof under the headings (b)
1705
(c), and (d), and with the substitution of the last-mentioned Act for the Glasgow Acts.
§ Read a second time.
§
Amendment proposed to the Lords' Amendment—
In line 14, to insert at the end thereof, the words '(b) for the assessments authorised to be levied under the Glasgow Acts being levied in the same manner as assessments for the expenses of a town council for the purposes of Section seventy-four of this Act instead of as in the Glasgow Acts provided, and for the reduction of the maximum amount thereof, if thought proper, and for the application of the said assessments.'"—(The Lord Advocate.)
§ Question proposed, "That those words be there inserted."
§ MR. GULLAND (Dumfries Burghs)stated that when the Bill was in Committee upstairs it came out that the authorities in Glasgow had been sending Catholic children to an industrial school in Aberdeen, and that they refused to contribute for their maintenance on the ground that their special Acts forbade them from contributing to industrial schools outside their own boundary. In the Committee they were assured that the law would be changed in that matter, and that Glasgow would have power to contribute towards the maintenance of children sent to industrial schools outside. It was a little difficult for a layman to follow the meaning of the new clause, and, therefore, he wished to have an assurance from the Lord Advocate that the Glasgow authorities would be able to contribute towards the maintenance of Catholic or other children sent outside their boundary.
§ MR. THOMAS SHAWsaid there was what he might call an extra-urban provision in respect of these children. It would meet the point which had very properly been raised by the hon. Member.
§ Lords' Amendment, as amended, agreed to.
§
Lords' Amendment—
In page 78, line 31, to leave out the word 'thirteen,' and to insert the word 'fourteen.'
§ Agreed to.
1706
§
Lords' Amendment—
In page 79, line 8, after the word 'apply,' to insert the following new subsection: '(17) The exemptions from Part I. of this Act contained in Section eleven thereof shall extend to any person who undertakes for reward the nursing and maintenance of such infants only as are boarded-out with him by some religious or charitable society or institution approved by the Local Government Board for Ireland—'
§ Read a second time.
§ MR. POWER (Waterford, E.) moved to amend the subsection by leaving out the word "infants" in line 3, and inserting the words "or infant." He said Ireland had not been treated in the fairest possible manner in this matter. The Irish representatives had been taken by surprise. The Amendments made in another place were not brought forward on the Second Reading or the Report stage, but at the last moment on the Third Reading. A clause was inserted which changed the whole nature of the Bill so far as Ireland was concerned. Certain exemptions which Ireland never asked for were made, and that country had been placed in an inferior position. Earlier in the session he was one of a Select Committee appointed to inquire into the condition of boarded-out children. The witnesses were agreed that a certain amount of supervision was absolutely necessary, but they were not all agreed as to what the style of inspection should be. There was no doubt that there was a great deal of cruelty and indifference on the part of people with whom children were boarded-out, and there ought to be some supervision. He would not labour the point, but anyone who took the trouble to read the evidence and the Report of the Committee would find that there was a condition of things which called for remedy. He moved this Amendment in order that the subsection might apply to a house where one child was boarded as well as to places where a number were boarded.
§ MR. HUGH LAWseconded the Amendment.
§
Amendment proposed to the Lords' Amendment—
In line 3, after the word 'infants,' to insert the words 'or infant.'"—(Mr. Power.)
§ Question proposed, "That those words be there inserted."
MR. CHEERYassured his hon. friend that the words were entirely unnecessary. The Interpretation Act of 1889 provided that words in statutes in the singular might be read as importing the plural, and that words in the plural might have been read in the singular, unless otherwise expressly stated in the statute. Here the word "infants" would include a case where there was only one infant.
§ SIR HENRY CRAIKasked why these people were to be exempted from the inspection which was deemed necessary in other cases.
§ MR. BOLANDsaid that this Amendment had something to do with the Amendment which he had on the Paper, and the result of it would be to exclude from the provisions of the Bill those children who were boarded-out by religious or charitable societies or institutions approved of by the Local Government Board for Ireland. Why should such a clause be put in with regard to Ireland and not with regard to England, Scotland, or Wales? He was sure that every hon. Member wanted all children who were boarded-out to be subject to inspection; and no explanation had been given why this particular subsection should have been inserted by the House of Lords. The effect of this Amendment by the House of Lords would be that in Ireland there would be some children who would not be subject to inspection, and the object of that portion of the Bill would be defeated.
§ MR. BARRIEsaid he would regard it as a misfortune if this class of children were left out of all inspection, and he hoped that the Minister in charge of the Bill would not accept the Lords' Amendment.
§ * MR. HERBERT SAMUELsaid that it was on the proposal of an hon. Member opposite that he had agreed to the exemption of the children boarded-out 1708 by religious or charitable institutions approved of by the Local Government Board of Ireland. The Government thought that that was a sufficient safeguard. On the merits of the question the Government did not attach much importance to this Amendment, and they would not insist upon accepting it.
§ Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
§ Lords' Amendment disagreed to.
§
Lords' Amendment—
In page 82, line 20, after the word 'evidence,' to insert as a new subsection the words '(30) The Licensing (Ireland) Acts, 1853 to 1905, shall be substituted for the Licensing Acts, 1828 to 1906.'
§ Read a second time.
§ MR. CHERRY, in moving to substitute another subsection, said that this was an agreed Amendment. Over the greater part of Ireland it was a rare thing to have a public-house exclusively for the sale of liquor. Almost all the houses also sold groceries, drapery, hardware, etc.; and it would be great hardship to prevent children going into these shops who only wished to buy groceries or drapery. He thought the representatives of Ireland, whether they had strong temperance views or otherwise were agreed that this clause should be inserted. He begged to move.
§ Lords' Amendment disagreed to.
§
Amendment proposed to the Bill—
Instead of the words so disagreed to in page 82, line 29, at the end, to insert the words—'(30) The provisions of Section one hundred and twenty of this Act (relative to the exclusion of children from bars of licensed premises) shall not apply in the case of any child going to or being upon licensed premises if a substantial part of the business carried on upon the premises is a drapery, grocery, hardware, or other business wholly unconnected with the sale of intoxicating liquor, and the child, or the person (if any) in whose custody the child is, goes to or is upon the premises for the purpose of purchasing goods other than intoxicating liquor; and the reference in the said section to the Licensing Acts, 1828 to 1906, shall be construed as a reference to the Licensing (Ireland) Acts, 1833 to 1905.'"—(Mr. Cherry.)
§ Question proposed, "That those words be there inserted."
§ SIR F. BANBURYsaid he had listened to the speech of the right hon. and learned Gentleman, and he could not say that it was at all satisfactory. As to his statement that it was an agreed clause he was told it was not by an hon. Member from Ireland. His second objection was that the right hon. and learned Gentleman in reply to an interruption by him as to why this clause should apply to Ireland only and not to England, told him that in Ireland it was the custom to attach to a public-house certain other businesses, but he remembered a proposal of his hon. and learned friend behind him who was now asleep to the effect that refreshment rooms in which there was a bar, which was only part of the business carried on, should not be included in a clause, being received with derision by the Treasury bench.
§ MR. CHERRYNot by me.
§ SIR F. BANBURYThe right hon. and learned Member voted against my hon. and learned friend.
§ MR. CHERRYI did not receive it with derision.
§ SIR F. BANBURYsaid at all events he voted against his hon. and learned friend, and this was a precisely similar Amendment in regard to Ireland. Much as he desired to see extended to Ireland privileges which were given to England, he did not think this privilege which was not given to England should be conferred. Although he was accustomed to contradictory utterances on the bench opposite he could not see how they could reconcile it with their consciences to bring forward this clause when they rejected the Amendment of his hon. and learned friend. Hon. Members below the gangway also voted against that Amendment, and he was, therefore, justified in opposing this one.
§ MR. MOONEYsaid he had listened with great interest to the illuminating speech of the hon. Baronet because it showed absolute ignorance of the conditions 1710 which prevailed in Ireland, The hon. Baronet seemed to think that because a clause was good for one country it was good for another, but he thought that was the weakest argument that he had ever heard him deliver. They had a particular claim to consideration in Ireland, because outside of Belfast and Dublin they would not find a single case of licensed premises which were not affected by this clause. When the Bill was discussed in Committee upstairs Irish Members did not interfere with the portions of the Bill which dealt with England but confined themselves to the case of Ireland. He was surprised that the hon. Baronet, as representing the Corporation of the City of London, which was one of the largest landowners in Ireland should try to upset a clause which would favourably affect licensed premises on his own property.
§ LORD BALCARREScould not understand why if it was no damage to a child in Ireland to go into licensed premises where boots and drapery, etc., were also sold it should injure a child in this country. There were other businesses conducted in public-houses here as well as the sale of liquor. [Cries of "What."] Well, there was the business of jobmaster which was very naturally associated with that of a public-house. He knew public-houses at tourist centres where stationery, and so forth, was sold, and everybody knew that the tobacconists; trade was carried on by publicans. He should like to know why this exemption should be made for Ireland and not for England. He thought the question deserved some answer from the English point of view.
§ * MR. HERBERT SAMUELsaid he should be very glad to answer the hon. Member's question, although they had reached a stage in the Bill at which it would be impossible to apply this provision to England. The reason it was applied to Ireland was that the Irish conditions were totally different, and the circumstances were not the same in the two countries. They were reluctantly compelled to make these exceptions. The great majority of licensed premises in Ireland were not public-houses as they were known in 1711 this country, but village shops which had a licence to sell liquor. To say no child was to go into a village shop because it sold liquor was to take a wrong attitude. It could not be justified. The conditions were not the same.
§ MR. BOWLESsaid the House should observe how this might affect the operation of the Bill in Ireland. Any publican in town or country had but to hang up a few boots or stockings or something else and he would come within this provision. ["No, no."] Who would decide whether it was a substantial part of the business?
§ MR. CHERRYThe magistrates.
§ MR. BOWLESthought it opened up a wide field for dispute. For his part, he agreed with his noble friend. If it was wrong for a child in England to enter a drinking bar, it was also wrong in Ireland. In the interests of equality and fair treatment he saw no special reason why this exemption should be made in this case.
§ MR. C. B. HARMSWORTH (Worcestershire, Droitwich)said his right hon. friend had accepted this Amendment, though from the speeches neither his right hon. friend nor the Attorney-General for Ireland regarded this Amendment with any particular favour. He himself regarded it as a great blot on a splendid Bill. He would never forget his astonishment the first time he went to Ireland to find that in grocers' and drapers' shops an open drinking bar was part and parcel of the premises. He thought it would be most desirable, at all events in urban areas, to keep children out of such places. He had no hesitation in saying that a village inn in England was a paradise compared with the ordinary public-house in Ireland.
§ MR. BARRIEadmitted that the conditions of Ireland differed greatly from those of this country, but reminded the House that in many parts of rural Scotland the public-houses were on all fours with those of Ireland. If this clause, therefore, was to be accepted for Ireland it should also be applied to the rural districts of Scotland. He, 1712 however, recognised the differences of Ireland, though he regarded this Amendment as a capitulation by the Government to hon. Members below the gangway, and recognised that it was hopeless for him to oppose it.
§ MR. HUGH LAWwas glad the right hon. Gentleman had put down this Amendment. He thought no one would accuse him of not being a temperance reformer in his own country, but he quite recognised that here there was a case to be met. The real case was not as the noble Lord had stated it, "beer with boots," but "boots with beer." It would really be preposterous, if a child of twelve, thirteen, or perhaps fourteen, passing a shop on the way home from school, was to be precluded from going in and buying a quarter of a pound of tea or sugar, merely because in the same room—unfortunately these places were not palatial—where drapery and other goods were sold there happened to be a bar. That was the case which the Amendment was mainly designed to meet. He did not think it went far enough, and he hoped the Government would see their way to accept one small Amendment. If a child went into the shop with its parents, surely it would be absurd to turn it out because, after purchasing, their goods, its parents bought a half-dozen porter. They were all at one in desiring that children should not stay in public-houses in the ordinary sense of the word while their parents were drinking. Nobody wanted that, and they were not asking that Ireland should be exempted. It was more or less discreditable, an he believed the trade itself did not want it. On the other hand, it was no use irritating people unnecessarily, and he thought it would be well if the Government were to accept the insertion of the words "for consumption on the premises." That would make it perfectly clear that the parent must not keep his child with him whilst he was drinking. On the other hand, it was not necessary to turn children out if, along with other goods, parents desired to purchase half-a-dozen porter.
§ MR. J. MACVEAGH (Down, S.)seconded. He was a strong supporter of all temperance legislation; he had 1713 never cast a vote against it, and he would not support this Amendment if he was not convinced it was reasonable. His hon. friend had suggested an Amendment which adhered to that of which he himself had given notice, and which he did not move because the Attorney-General had given notice of an Amendment which practically covered the two. The words "for consumption on the premises" were part of his Amendment which was not incorporated in that of the Government, and if the Government would accept them it would meet the entire case and put the matter beyond any possibility of misunderstanding.
§
Amendment proposed to the proposed Amendment—
In line 8, after the word 'liquor,' to insert the words 'for consumption on the premises.'"—(Mr. Hugh Law.)
§ Question proposed, "That those words be there inserted."
§ MR. CHERRYsaid the fact that the two hon. Members were such well-known advocates of temperance, one of them being a temperance worker, indicated there was no desire to injure children on their part; and he thought it was very unreasonable, if, when a man was in a shop with a boy buying drapery, hardware, or anything else, he could not buy a bottle of wine without turning the boy out. The Government would therefore accept the Amendment. It would only allow wine or beer to be bought for consumption off the premises. Under the Act of 1901 they could send a child for the purpose of buying liquor for consumption off the premises.
§ SIR F. BANBURYsaid his hon. friend had moved that the Child Messenger Bill should be excluded from the object of the clause. The Government voted against that, but when a similar Amendment was moved by hon. Gentlemen below the gangway, the Attorney-General for Ireland got up and said it was reasonable, and the Government would accept it. Really, this was going too far. An Amendment applying to England was rejected because it would encourage intemperance; but an Amendment applying to Ireland, moved by an hon. 1714 Member below the gangway, was immediately accepted. This proved the ludicrousness of the Bill and of the attitude of the Government. They really did not care twopence what was going into the Bill; all they wanted was to please both their temperance supporters on their own side of the House, and their supporters on the Nationalist benches. They did not care what inconsistencies there were.
§ MR. SWIFT MACNEILL (Donegal, S.)congratulated the hon. Baronet on having become an advocate of temperance at middle age, and said it was all the more delightful, because of his benevolent desire to see that no temptation was thrown in the way of Irishmen's children. He could assure the hon. Baronet from some knowledge on the subject, that more wine was consumed there in a single night than in the whole of Ireland in a week. He would give the argument of his hon. friend above the gangway the credit it deserved. He would give it the appreciation that Henry Grattan bestowed on a similar argument. His hon. friend's argument was that unheard of things would happen if this very innocuous Amendment was allowed to pass. Grattan said—
You cannot argue with a prophet. You can only disbelieve him.And he most profoundly disbelieved the hon. Member. He passed with some fear and deference to the elaborate argument of the noble Lord on the front Opposition bnch. He could only say that when he attained to the House of Peers, there would be a chance for that House yet with his illuminating wisdom. The noble Lord thought it was a wrong thing that there should be a public-house in Ireland to which children should resort, though not for the sake of intoxicating liquor. He knew how vitally this matter affected the prosperity of Irish small traders. His hon. friend opposite knew Ireland extremely well. He had cycled and motored through the greater part of it, and he well knew that in the small villages, as a rule, there was only one shop, the general traders' shop, which was a kind of market and commercial house for the whole countryside, and in it wines were sold, and there was a 1715 bar, too. But the difference between the ordinary village shop, generally celled the shop, where everything was sold, and the beer shop or wine shop of this country in which liquor was exclusively sold, should be apparent even to understandings less intelligent than those of some Gentlemen who were benefactors of Ireland, having done their best to prevent temperance legislation for England. He had received telegrams and letters, some of a pathetic character, in reference to this or some similar clause, as proposed by the Irish Attorney-General, being passed. He had received letters and telegrams from small traders saying that if the provisions contemplated by hon. Gentlemen opposite were allowed, their trade was at an end—not merely the trade in liquors, but their whole trade and means of livelihood. If such a thing as that should be done, there ought to be at least a time-limit. The whole thing was extremely wrong. It was wrong to the customer and to the shopowner. The opinion of Ireland was unanimous on the point, notwithstanding the hon. Gentleman who, although he represented an Irish constituency, by accident was a Scotsman. He did not propose similar legislation for Scotland. It was only when the trade of the country was at stake, when inconvenience would be promoted under the specious garb of protecting children, who were admirably protected by the Bill, that this scheme of the Government was brought forward, and he hoped very sincerely that the House would accept the clause by a large majority.
§ * SIR HENRY CRAIKcalled the attention of the House to the very extraordinary constitutional matter which was involved, and one which would be serious if it were not so absolutely ludicrous. They were considering the Amendments of the House of Lords, and they were at liberty to reject or in some small way to modify them. On the flimsy basis of the Amendment they were now considering, the right hon. Gentleman proposed to introduce an entirely new clause into the Bill.
§ MR. CHERRYThis Amendment is really consequential on the admission 1716 into the Bill of the other clauses which were disposed of previously.
§ * SIR HENRY CRAIKsaid the Attorney-General moved to disagree with, the Lords' Amendment, and to insert a new subsection. The Amendment recited certain Acts which were to be read with this Bill, and the Attorney-General moved to disagree with what was a purely drafting clause, and in place of it, he moved a section which was to introduce an entirely new principle into the Bill. The hon. Member for Donegal said he had received many letters. He should like to know when he received them. Had they been quite recent? Had they reached the ears of hon. Members below the gangway, and through them the Treasury bench since the Bill left the House, and had they taken the excuse that the procedure and the Amendments in the House of Lords had afforded them to recast in a very important point their Bill and to make a distinction between different parts of the kingdom? Now they found there was some use for a House of Lords, and that it might be a convenient accommodation whereby a simple verbal Amendment of the House of Lords might be made an excuse and a foundation for introducing a vital change, forgotten or not sufficiently pressed when the Bill was before the House, and now impressed upon the House by Members below the gangway by letters and telegrams, the date of which the hon. Member for Donegal would not tell them. They had no means of altering it if the House of Lords had not touched the Bill. After such conduct on the part of the Treasury bench they might hear less, perhaps, of the absolute uselessness of the House of Lords. They now knew it might be made an engine of extreme convenience and utility when it suited party exigencies.
§ MR. KETTLE (Tyrone, E.)said the hon. Gentleman seemed to have forgotten that this was a clause from the Licensing Bill originally introduced for England alone and not intended to apply to Ireland. He was greatly interested in the point of constitutional law raised by the hon. Gentleman who had just sat down. He did not know there was 1717 any constitutional law in this country. He thought it was a series of divinely inspired blunders. He entirely agreed with the hon. Gentleman, and that was the chief reason it gave him pleasure in voting for the Amendment. It amounted to a substantial repeal of the Act of Union. It showed the entire responsibility of legislating on the same lines on any given subject in England and in Ireland. The noble Lord said he did not understand the Irish question. He now understood why the noble Lord was a Unionist. When Irish questions were under discussion the speeches of the Irish party necessarily resolved themselves into classes of elementary instruction with regard to those questions in Ireland. His hon. friends had proved that this Amendment was not directed against temperance but to the special conditions prevailing in Ireland, and the House ought to have no difficulty in voting in favour of it.
§ MR. MITCHELL-THOMSONsaid he had already expressed himself very strongly in favour of the principle of the clause, and he thought the doubts he had expressed as to the wisdom of applying it straight off to rural areas were more than justified by the discussions they had heard. The hon. Member for Donegal was frankly protectionist. He told the House he was out in the interests of the Irish trader, and if he understood his case rightly it was that the Irish trader could not continue to exist unless children came to the premises where liquor was sold. If that was so, so much the worse for the Irish trader. He was sorry the Vice-President of the Board
§
of Agriculture was not there, because he should like to have heard what he had to say. Browsing in past debates was an idle pastime, but he recalled the right hon. Gentleman's speech on a temperance measure much more extreme than this, not a Bill for excluding children from premises where liquor was sold, but a Bill to prevent liquor from being sold at all. Speaking in 1895 on the Local Veto Bill, he said—
Why should Ireland be excluded? Was it because Ireland did not require it?
The hon. Member for Donegal said Ireland was temperate. He answered him by the Vice-President—
Anyone going to the South and West of Ireland would find every town, village, and hamlet literally stuffed with public-houses and steeped in drink. In the town of Castle-island, with a population of 1,200, there were forty-seven liquor shops. If the Bill ought to be applied to any part of the kingdom it ought to be applied to Ireland. The exclusion of Ireland, he said deliberately, was part of a bargain. What was the compact? Leave Ireland out and all the difficulties vanished. Hon. Members for Ireland had no objection if Ireland was left out to force this principle upon Englishmen who did not want it.
He wished the right hon. Gentleman were there to make his comment on the procedure the Government had chosen to adopt.
§ Amendment to the Amendment agreed to.
§ Question put, "That those words, as amended, be there inserted."
§ The House divided:—Ayes, 143; Noes, 26. (Division List No. 460.)
1719| AYES. | ||
| Abraham, William (Cork, N. E.) | Byles, William Pollard | Duckworth, Sir James |
| Allen, Charles P. (Stroud) | Carr-Gomm, H. W. | Duncan, C. (Barrow-in-Furness) |
| Armitage, R. | Causton, Rt. Hn. Richard Knight | Edwards, Sir Francis (Radnor) |
| Armstrong, W. C. Heaton | Cherry, Rt. Hon. R. R. | Evans, Sir Samuel T. |
| Barlow, Percy (Bedford) | Churchill, Rt. Hon. Winston S. | Everett, R. Lacey |
| Beaumont, Hon. Hubert | Clough, William | Fenwick, Charles |
| Benn, W. (T'w'r Hamlets, S. Geo. | Collins, Stephen (Lambeth) | Ferens, T. R. |
| Bennett, E. N. | Collins, Sir Wm. J. (S. Pancras, W. | Fuller, John Michael F. |
| Birrell, Rt. Hon. Augustine | Cooper, G. J. | Gill, A. H. |
| Boland, John | Corbett, C H (Sussex, E. Grinst'd | Glendinning, R. G. |
| Bowerman, C. W. | Cornwall, Sir Edwin A. | Glover, Thomas |
| Brace, William | Cowan, W. H. | Goddard, Sir Daniel Ford |
| Bramsdon, T. A. | Crosfield, A. H. | Gooch, George Peabody (Bath) |
| Bright, J. A. | Cullinan, J. | Greenwood, G. (Peterborough) |
| Brunner, J. F. L. (Lancs., Leigh) | Davies, Timothy (Fulham) | Gulland, John W. |
| Bryce, J. Annan | Davies, Sir W. Howell (Bristol, S.) | Gurdon, Rt Hn. Sir W. Brampton |
| Buxton, Rt. Hn. Sydney Charles | Dobson, Thomas W. | Gwynn, Stephen Lucius |
| Halpin, J. | Massie, J. | Shackleton, David James |
| Harcourt, Robert V. (Montrose) | Middlebrook, William | Shaw, Rt. Hn. T. (Hawick B.) |
| Harvey, A. G. C. (Rochdale) | Montagu, Hon. E. S. | Shipman, Dr. John G. |
| Haslam, Lewis (Monmouth) | Mooney, J. J. | Stewart-Smith, D. (Kendal) |
| Haworth, Arthur A. | Morgan, G. Hay (Cornwall) | Strachey, Sir Edward |
| Henderson, Arthur (Durham) | Morrell, Philip | Straus, B. S. (Mile End) |
| Henry, Charles S. | Morton, Alpheus Cleophas | Summerbell, T. |
| Higham, John Sharp | Murray, Capt. Hn A. C. (Kincard. | Talbot, Lord E. (Chichester) |
| Horniman, Emslie John | Newnes, E. (Notts, Bassetlaw) | Taylor, Theodore C. (Radcliffe) |
| Hudson, Walter | Nicholson, Charles N. (Doncast'r | Tennant, H. J. (Berwickshire) |
| Idris, T. H. W. | Nolan, Joseph | Thompson, J. W. H. (Somerset, E. |
| Illingworth, Percy H. | Norton, Capt. Cecil William | Thorne, G. R. (Wolverhampton) |
| Jones, William (Carnarvonshire) | Nuttall, Harry | Thorne, William (West Ham) |
| Jowett, F. W. | O'Brien, Partick (Kilkenny) | Tomkinson, James |
| Kearley, Sir Hudson E. | O'Connor, John (Kildare, N.) | Trevelvan, Charles Philips |
| Kettle, Thomas Michael | O'Kelly, James (Roscommon, N. | Verney, F. W. |
| Kincaid-Smith, Captain | Parker, James (Halifax) | Walsh, Stephen |
| Laidlaw, Robert | Pickersgill, Edward Hare | Waring, Walter |
| Law, Hugh A. (Donegal, W.) | Power, Patrick Joseph | Warner, Thomas Courtenay T. |
| Layland-Barratt, Sir Francis | Price, C. E. (Edinb'gh, Central) | Watt, Henry A. |
| Lehmann, R. C. | Price, Sir Robert J. (Norfolk, E.) | White, J. Dundas (Dumbart'nsh. |
| Lever, A. Levy (Essex, Harwich) | Radford, G. H. | White, Patrick (Meath, North) |
| Lewis, John Herbert | Richards, T. F. (Wolverh'mpt'n) | Whitley, John Henry (Halifax) |
| Lyell, Charles Henry | Robertson, J. M. (Tyneside) | Wiles, Thomas |
| Macdonald, J. R. (Leicester) | Robinson, S. | Wilkie, Alexander |
| MacNeill, John Gordon Swift | Robson, Sir William Snowdon | Williamson, A. |
| MacVeagh, Jeremiah (Down, S.) | Roch, Walter F. (Pembroke) | Wilson, W. T. (Westhoughton) |
| M'Crae, Sir George | Rogers, F. E. Newman | Winfrey, R. |
| M'Laren, H. D. (Stafford, W.) | Samuel, Rt. Hn. H. L. (Cleveland | |
| Mansfield, H. Rendall (Lincoln) | Scott, A. H. (Ashton-under-Lyne | TELLERS FOR THE AYES—Mr. Joseph Pease and Master of Elibank. |
| Marks, G. Croydon (Launceston) | Seddon, J. | |
| Marnham, F. J. | Seely, Colonel | |
| NOES. | ||
| Acland-Hood, Rt Hn. Sir Alex. F. | Courthope, G. Loyd | Rendall, Athelstan |
| Balcarres, Lord | Forster, Henry William | Renwick, George |
| Banner, John S. Harmood- | Hardy, Laurence (Kent, Ashford | Staveley-Hill, Henry (Staff'sh.) |
| Beck, A. Cecil | Harmsworth, Cecil B. (Worc'r) | Thomson, W. Mitchell (Lanark) |
| Bowles, G. Stewart | Hazel, Dr. A. E. | Wedgwood, Josiah C. |
| Carlile, E. Hildred | Hedges, A. Paget | Wortley, Rt. Hn. C. B. (Stuart- |
| Cave, George | Howard, Hon. Geoffrey | |
| Cecil, Evelyn (Aston Manor) | Joynson-Hicks, William | TELLERS FOR THE NOES— Sir Henry Craik and Sir Frederick Banbury. |
| Cecil, Lord R. (Marylebone, E.) | Mason, James F. (Windsor) | |
| Charming, Sir Francis Allston | Rawlinson, John Frederick Peel |
Bill read a second time, and committed to a Committee of the Whole House for to-morrow.
§
Lords' Amendment—
In page 82, line 24, to leave out the word 'January,' and to insert the word 'April.'
§ Agreed to.
§ Committee appointed to draw up reasons to be assigned to the Lords for disagreeing to certain of the Amendments made by the Lords to the Bill.
§ Committee nominated of: The Lord-Advocate, Mr. Attorney-General for Ireland, Mr. Hugh Law, Mr. Herbert Samuel, and Lord Edmund Talbot.
§ Three to be the quorum.
§ To withdraw immediately.—(Mr. Herbert Samuel.)